Susan Elkington leaves Chellomedia

Susan Elkington has left Chellomedia after more than a decade at the company, DTVE sister title TBI has revealed. Elkington was executive vice-president, content development, acquisitions and programming, film and general entertainment at Chellomedia, which is the content division of Liberty Global.

In a career at Chellomedia that stretches back to 2001, she spearheaded the roll out of video-on-demand services across the parent group’s numerous pay TV networks and latterly was overseeing content deals across its VOD and linear services.

She also worked on last year’s deal for the MGM channels business that saw Chello buy the Hollywood studio’s 13 branded feeds across Europe and Asia.

Elkington confirmed to TBI that she had left Chellomedia and said she had other projects that she wanted to pursue.

She has created a new media consultancy called Nanuk Media. Her consultancy work will, according to the information available for Nanuk, focus on “working with companies to launch new business, products and services to develop new revenue streams”.

She will also look at non-executive director positions within the industry with a non-exec role at a well-known international channel operator understood to be in the offing.

Chello’s chief commercial officer, Simon Freer, confirmed the personnel change and said Elkington has left the company. Freer joined late last year from 3i and will, he said, decide how and when to fill the EVP role in the coming weeks.

Elkington’s departure comes as Liberty Global pursues plans to sell Chellomedia.

There is no firm news regarding suitors, but Scripps Networks Interactive is one company that has been linked with a move. With the sale process moving forward, one well-placed observer said that Chellomedia is unlikely to appoint a direct replacement for Elkington.

Prior to Chellomedia, Elkington was senior vice-president at Polygram TV International, before it was folded into NBCUniversal. Before that she worked at BBC Worldwide as managing director, EMEA .