Group 1200 Media Names Mike DuBoise Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

DALLAS, July 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Group 1200 Media, the parent holding company of, FUNimation Entertainment, Giant Ape Media, and Group 1200 Products, announces today the appointment of Mike DuBoise as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

Mr. DuBoise joins Group 1200 Media from Universal Studios Home Entertainment, a unit of Universal Pictures, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies.   For the past eight years, Mr. DuBoise served as Sr. Vice President of Strategic Customer Marketing, Shopper Insights, and Category Management at Universal Studios Home Entertainment.   In this capacity, he and his team were responsible for maximizing sales of each movie distributed from USHE through trade partners and ensuring the movie category was effectively marketed and merchandised to meet the consumer's needs. Prior to NBCUniversal, Mr. DuBoise held senior sales and customer marketing positions at Avery Dennison.

"We are thrilled to have someone with Mike's breadth of knowledge, expertise, and proven track record of success join our Executive team", said Gen Fukunaga, Group 1200 CEO.  Reporting to Mr. Fukunaga, Mr. DuBoise will be responsible for the strategic vision and leadership of Marketing, Business Development, Strategy, Digital Distribution, Home Video, Production, Creative Services, Broadcast, International Sales, and Acquisitions & Licensing departments. He will be charged with optimizing content consumption through key revenue streams such as Theatrical Distribution, SVOD, VOD, PPV, Digital and Physical Blu-ray and DVD.

"I'm excited to join Group 1200 and energized to be a part of such an innovative and forward-looking team", said Mr. DuBoise. "The chance to shape an entertainment business model that is being built to efficiently target production, marketing, and content distribution, around both rapidly evolving technology and passionate independent genre specific audience preferences, is an amazing opportunity" 

The appointment of Mr. DuBoise, a leading entertainment and consumer products executive, signals a focus on producing, marketing and distributing both anime and live action theatrical content that is matched to an avid audience in the way they want to watch it. Group 1200's slate includes FUNimation Entertainment, the North American market share leader in anime content, along with live action films developed internally, co-productions, and films developed by outside partners and distributed by the studio.

"Mike is the right combination of strategic thinking, financial discipline, digital vision, consumer insight, and customer focus.  He has a management style and entrepreneurial spirit that will respect our legacy and help transform our future", stated Mr. Fukunaga.

During his tenure at Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Mr. DuBoise was a recognized industry "Thought Leader".  He led a major sales, category management, and customer marketing restructuring that changed "go to market" strategies, processes, and organizational structures, which ultimately resulted in numerous vendor awards and contributed to industry leading performance. He was instrumental in driving new and innovative ways to apply consumer insights and merchandising principals to the movie shopping experience.  Mr. DuBoise has 25 years of success in the Entertainment and Consumer Package Goods industries.

"There's significant growth potential and value that can be created by fully leveraging the opportunities with FUNimation, Giant Ape Media and Group 1200 Products and our partners", stated Mr. DuBoise. "People love movies and anime that have good stories at their core!  We're going to build a model that taps into innovative story tellers, takes full advantage of the digital revolution and delivers independent content that emotionally resonates with passionate fans."

 About Group 1200 Media

Group 1200 Media is a multifaceted entertainment conglomerate encompassing FUNimation(R) Entertainment, Giant Ape Media and Group 1200 Products (GameSamba and Immerz). This production, marketing, and distribution corporation strives tirelessly to accomplish its mission of delivering the highest quality entertainment brands – along with their associated products – across a multitude of genres. Group 1200 Media is committed to continually releasing and developing exciting new properties representative of its diverse background in the entertainment industry. Additional information may be found at www.group1200.com  

SOURCE Group 1200 Media