SUCCESS STORIES

Created strategy for start-up Theatrics' pivot into broadcast market, landing marquee client and leading development of new self-service platform. <Details>

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Developed & launched new accelerator for start-ups in the entertainment and media industries. <Details>

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Secured $5m in sponsorships and 1,000 companies for a world-class digital content R&D Lab. <Details>
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Negotiated more than two dozen deals valued at $100 million. <Details>
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Created social media program that increased fan base by 2000% and covered staff costs with new ad revenues. <Details>
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Doubled value of major Hollywood movie database by redesigning production and distribution system. <Details>
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Designed  $2m digital preservation and distribution system for of 3200-hour video archive. <Details>

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ENDORSEMENTS

Biff Van Cleve, CEO, Theatrics.com. "Nick has been a real blessing for our startup.  His knowledge  and standing in both the broadcast and transmedia environment has opened and will continue to open many doors for us. He is tenacious in his pursuits on our behalf and integral to our business strategies.  His insight and candor when accessing potential issues, both inside and outside the company, is a valued resource in our decision making. The bottom line is: Nick is a trusted advisor."

Ana Serrano, Chief Digital Officer, Canadian Film Centre. "Nick DeMartino was at the top of my list of must-have collaborators in digital media strategy, program development, and product innovation when creating CFC Media Lab's ideaBOOST digital entertainment accelerator. Nick brings deep experience as a digital media innovator at the cutting edge to his role as a senior advisor to ideaBOOST, and a remarkable range of skills, as well. I recommend him very highly and urge others to work with this knowledgable, generous, well-connected, and charming man." 

Gordon Paddison, EVP, Integrated Marketing, New Line Cinema. “Nick's work supporting technology and championing filmmakers has been instrumental in developing worldwide collaboration and mentorship. A great colleague and friend, his partnership and professionalism set him apart in a world where business models continue to evolve.”

Peter Marx, Vice President, Emerging Technologies, Universal.  “Nick is a founding member of the new media industry with the demonstrated ability to deliver complex showcase projects. I've worked with him on online (before the web!), on interactive TV, interactive entertainment (videogames), and on digital entertainment (TV and cinema), all at the earliest stages of such concepts. I'd gladly work with him again.”

Scott Holmes, President, United Future. “Thank you Nick for all your support and participation! Working with you at AFI was a pleasure and I look forward to our next encounter. Highly recommend to anyone looking for a sophisticated consultant.”

Carl Bressler, CEO, Founder, Talent Agent, Montana Artists Agency. “Thoughtful, knowledgeable, well-connected and in possession of a well traveled world view, Nick brings decades of know how to whatever projects, initiatives and programs he helps conceive, enlist and engage other key teammates and fully execute. Communication, media, education, and the edge of technology uniting all three, Nick knows where it’s at, and where it’s headed.”

Brendan Harkin, Director, X|Media|Lab. "If you have been lucky enough to have worked with Nick DeMartino in any capacity then you don't need me to tell you of his acuity, wisdom, his anticipation of the major trends, or his golden rolodex. If you are wondering about working with Nick, I can assure you - you have found the right person. Nick has been a much-loved and deeply respected International Mentor at a number of X Media Lab's and he is welcome back at any time he chooses. People of his quality and intellect are rare indeed.”  

Bob Lambert, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Technology Strategy, Disney. “Nick has an unparalleled range of knowledge and network contacts in the media and entertainment sector… I know Nick to be visionary, thoughtful, extraordinary articulate, and well versed in working with creative, production, and technical personnel. He has the practical experience in academic, commercial, and political environments to see future opportunities and guide them into reality. I recommend his skills and personal style highly.”

Jim Lambert, Co-Founder, Hiwire. “More than, a supremely capable manager, Nick is the impresario of all things digital in media. At AFI his vision, skills and sheer hard work created the premiere and seminal meeting place between Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Deftly bringing together the movers and shakers of both worlds, he cultivated the rich cross-fertilization of two vital industries. Perhaps more than anyone else, he ushered the Digital Revolution into Hollywood transforming it forever and for better. The scope and depth of his business relationships are nonpareil. His finger is on the pulse; he knows what's on the drawing board, what's in production, who's doing what and most importantly, who should talk to whom. And he's a great guy!”

Jerry Brandt, Samsung. “I've known Nick for over 15 years. He has always been a great resource, advisor, friend and business partner. He represented his company well while at the same time working hard to find value and fit for yours and exceed your expectations. He is always fair, honest and forthright in his business dealings. He approached partnerships with AFI with a great deal of sagacity and innovation.” 

Geoff Katz, Method. “Nick has a unique ability to identify trends at the cross-section of entertainment, technology and business and to implement strategies that have allowed a broad range of world-class technology and media partners to realize the future of content creation and consumer entertainment user experience. Nick sees opportunities and connections before most of our industry and through his efforts has made Hollywood a more collaborative place to imagine the future and build innovative new businesses.”  

Bob Holmes, CEO, Sudden Industries. “Nick is a mentor's mentor. In working with him at AFI's Digital Content Lab, I was always impressed with his ability to manage and lead team members who were already considered leaders (and sometimes competitors) in their own respective fields. This ability to bring together and focus divergent stakeholders on a common challenge seems to be a unique capability of Nick's and is a primary reason for the success of many of his projects.”

Ferhan Cook, Owner, President, Any Screen Productions. “Nick De Martino is a creative genius and a networking power house! He helped make the careers of more interactive producers, and connected more people in the interactive business than anyone I know.  Nick's brainchild AFI Digital Content Lab has pushed the frontiers of digital content creation by bringing together amazing thought leaders and digital innovators over a span of 10 years. I have observed Nick to be a supportive manager to all the very smart people he hired to run the lab. I also observed him to be a persuasive business partner, who managed to get important sponsors to share his vision for the Lab for 10 years. Personally, I owe majority of my network of digital experts and friends in Los Angeles to the AFI Digital Content Lab, which was my "creative mecca" for interactive innovation, every year. Nick is a smart strategist and a great speaker with a vast Rolodex. He will be a valuable consultant and connector to a transversal set of companies from digital technology providers, to Internet and TV producers and creators.”

Gary Arlen, President, Arlen Communications Inc.  “It has been a pleasure for more than 30 years to work with and keep in touch with Nick DeMartino. His visionary approach and management talents are incredible, and Nick's knowledge, intensity and broad range of skills keep us attentive and focused on the tasks ahead of us.”

Dr. Janet Murray, Professor, Georgia Tech. “Nick DeMartino is one of the smartest and most forward-thinking and imaginative people I have every worked with (and I have spent my career in media innovation at MIT and Georgia Tech). He is also one of the most socially gifted and insightful people I have ever met (and here my context is Hollywood, the epicenter of social skillfulness). I have known Nick since the late 1990s when I was at MIT and through the 00's when I was a Trustee of the AFI and a professor at Georgia Tech. We worked together on a prototype digital edition of Casablanca that is still ahead of its time and in connection with Board meetings and educational initiatives at the AFI. I have seen him command a room of movie studio and television network CEOs, manage complex legal negotiations, and administer a growing, innovative, revenue-producing group with in a rapidly changing non-profit. But I have most of all valued talking with him over the years to get his analysis of where Hollywood is and where it is going with digital media. He understands film and TV as art, entertainment, and industry, and he has an equally acute understanding of technology, making him one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on the direction of emerging media forms. Nick has an unerring ability to identify the projects and people of lasting value in an ocean of hype and transient importance, and the decisiveness and energy to make things happen. He is also a very warm, funny, and optimistic person with good values, and he attracts very smart people to work with him. In short, a visionary and a mensch.”

Liz Gebhardt, Market Development Manager, Music and New Media, Apple. “Nick has been at the intersection of media and technology from the early days - when it was called "new Media, and we were all excited about built in CDROM drives and Hypercard. He saw the future of what this platform could mean for creative producers - and at AFI combined his vision and skills to create one of the premiere practical meeting places between Silicon Valley and Hollywood.”

Paul Jacques. Chief Information & Infrastructure Officer, American Film Institute.  “A visionary Technology Executive, Nick cultivated and incubated talent and technology to create some of AFI's most successful and groundbreaking programs and projects including the AFI Digital Content Lab and the AFI New Media Salons. Nick is a master at bringing together creative and technical professionals to build teams that create new and innovative solutions and drive the art and science of the moving image. Professionally, Nick is a joy to work with. He has the remarkable of gift of being able to look at a new technology in its infancy and almost instantly see the long-term potential. His energy and enthusiasm motivate and inspire. I call myself lucky for having the opportunity to work with and know this incredible force of nature.”  

Nicholas de Wolff, Vice President, Worldwide Marketing & Communications, Thomson. “Nick has established himself as a visionary evangelist for emerging technologies in the Media & Entertainment industries. His intelligence, charm and enthusiasm have done much to help the AFI raise its profile as a valued incubator of compelling innovations in content creation and distribution.”  

Eric Taub, New York Times. “Nick is a personable, efficient, trustworthy, and reliable member of the community. He is very knowledgeable in his field, and a great asset to the creative community.”