Los Angeles, California – Global Eagle Entertainment Inc. announced that it has appointed Jim Griffiths as Senior Vice-President of Content Purchasing and Distribution.

Griffiths has over thirty years of experience in senior leadership roles at entertainment groups, and an extensive portfolio of expertise in the purchasing and distribution of movie and TV programming. Griffiths’ impressive background includes serving as President of Worldwide Pay Television and International Home Video at 20^th Century Fox, President of Worldwide Television Distribution at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, President of Playboy Entertainment Group and Managing Director of Star TV.

More recently, Griffiths was Chief Executive Officer at GSD LLC, a consulting firm specialised in supporting international media companies with their business and growth strategies. While at GSD LLC, Griffiths partnered with renowned TV, film and theater producer Colin Callender on the television series Dancing On The Edge (Golden Globe winner), White Queen (Golden Globe nominee) and Wolf Hall premiering on Masterpiece Theater on 5 April . During his tenure as Director of Business Development for CAA, Griffiths helped launch the Sundance Channel for actor Robert Redford.

In the newly created role of SVP of Content Purchasing and Distribution, Griffiths will manage all centralised content purchasing and distribution for Global Eagle Entertainment (GEE), including the group’s distributors Entertainment in Motion, Fairdeal Multimedia Limited based in India, and Emphasis VideoEntertainment based in Hong Kong. He will also be in charge of managing content acquisition and licensing in rapid-growth markets, and will lead the expansion of GEE’s content portfolio for the seatback and wireless in-flight entertainment (IFE) market, as well as other ancillary markets.

“Jim joins us at a crucial time when GEE is defining the future of content licensing and distribution models for the airline market,” commented Walé Adepoju, Chief Commercial Officer at GEE, “This new role, and Jim’s remarkable background in the entertainment industry, cement GEE’s leadership in IFE content services and will help us pave the way to provide more variety and opportunities for media consumption in the global travel industry.”