Roku appoints GM and SVP of account acquisition

Roku has appointed SmartKem CEO, Mustafa Ozgen, as general manager (GM) and senior vice president (SVP) of account acquisition.

Mustafa Ozgen

Ozgen joins Roku this month and is due to replace Roku’s GM and SVP of Roku TVs and player, Chas Smith, after a transition period. Smith plans to retire and leave the company at the end of Q1 2019.

“Account growth is a top priority for us – both in placing our great Roku devices in the hands of consumers and further scaling our Roku TV licensing business,” said Anthony Wood, Roku founder and CEO.

“Mustafa brings a wealth of leadership experience and global TV industry knowledge which makes him well suited to spearhead our mission to make the Roku platform widely used around the world.”

Ozgen has both management and consumer electronics industry experience and joins Roku from Smartkem Limited, a supplier of organic semiconductors for the manufacture of LCD and OLED displays.

Before that he was CEO of QD Vision, an MIT spin-off that was acquired by Samsung Electronics and its technology incorporated into Samsung’s QLED-branded TV displays. Ozgen also previously ran TV and media business units as SVP and GM of the home multimedia business unit at Sigma Designs.

Ozgen said: “Roku is one of the most beloved companies in TV entertainment and has built incredible momentum. I’m honoured to join the team, and I look forward to connecting consumers with Roku devices as we drive further scale of the Roku platform.”