Markets

Reed MIDEM announces that Dr Gong Yu, Founder & CEO of iQIYI; Matthew Henick, Head of Content Planning and Strategy at Facebook and Paresh Rajwat, Director of Video at Facebook are joining the MIPCOM 2018 Media Mastermind Keynotes stellar line-up.

As part of the China Country of Honour’s conference programme at MIPCOM 2018, Dr Gong Yu will deliver a keynote in the Grand Auditorium on Tuesday 16 October at 4.40 pm.

Dr. Gong founded iQIYI in 2010 and has been its Chief Executive Officer ever since. Under his leadership, iQIYI has grown into the country’s largest video and entertainment platform both in terms of user base and viewing time.

In 2017, Dr. Gong announced a strategic mission for iQIYI to become “A technology-based entertainment giant that brings fun and joy to people and their families”，under which the company has been transforming from a streaming service provider to an entertainment empire with products and services across the whole spectrum of the entertainment industry.

On Wednesday 17 of October, Facebook’s Head of Content Planning and Strategy Matthew Henick and Paresh Rajwat, Director of Video, in tandem with a special guest, will discuss Facebook’s evolving video strategy following the global roll-out of the platform’s flagship video destination, Facebook Watch. They will discuss how Facebook is developing social video experiences in Watch that encourage interaction between fans and creators, and will unveil new content updates that underpin this strategy, that mark the platform’s international arrival.

Matthew Henick leads content strategy and investment for Facebook and Instagram. In this role, Matthew’s team brings together strategy, analytics, deal-making, programming and marketing functions to use content as a growth lever for products across the family of apps. Before Facebook, Matthew was Head of BuzzFeed Studios where he spearheaded BuzzFeed’s development and exploitation of IP on traditional and digital platforms. Matthew co-founded one of the first ringtone companies in the United States while in high school and has previously written for Pop Up Video (he was the Katy Perry expert) and worked for Judd Apatow on movies like Super Bad and Step Brothers. A graduate of the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC, Matthew has always operated at the evolving intersection of media and technology, advising and investing in companies in the advertising, apparel and sports marketing space.

Paresh Rajwat is the Director and Head of Video Products at Facebook, where he oversees Facebook Watch, Live, social video and other video innovations. Prior to leading the video team he spearheaded Facebook’s India product strategy and grew it to be one of the largest markets for Facebook. Paresh has also led Search and News Feed monetization product during his time at Facebook. Prior to Facebook, Paresh held several leadership positions at leading tech companies including Apple, Criteo, Yahoo! and Microsoft.

The MIPCOM 2018 Media Mastermind Keynote line-up already includes Tim Davie, CEO of BBC Studios; Josh Sapan , President and CEO of AMC Networks; global phenomenon in food, television and campaigning Jamie Oliver; Kay Madati, Vice President and Global Head of Content Partnerships, Twitter; ITV’s CEO Carolyn McCall and MIPCOM 2018 Personality of the Year Issa Rae, Creator, Producer and Star of HBO’s hit show ‘Insecure’.

This year, MIPCOM takes as its overarching conference theme “THE BIG SHIFT,” which sets out to examine the paradigm shifts affecting content creation, distribution and monetisation – a topic that will be tackled by a string of top-level industry figures.