YouTube EMEA Vice President Pedro Pina has been selected to present the James McTaggart Memorial Lecture and will deliver a featured speech at this year’s Edinburgh Television Festival.
Pina oversees YouTube’s Europe, Middle East and Africa, including its business, creators and content ecosystem. In this role, he works with everyone from fledgling digital creators to Hollywood studios.
Prior to joining YouTube, he spent 10 years as a global client partner at Google (YouTube’s parent company), working with major advertising companies such as Unilever, L’Oréal, and Nestlé. He has been named as a role model for the world’s top LGBT+ executives and was recently appointed to the board of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
“It is an incredible honor to be invited to speak at McTaggart,” Pina said. “Especially at a time when our industry has a huge opportunity to redefine itself. Television has always been celebrated for its ability to bring us together, but today we live in the most diverse, prosperous and creative era in human history. Audiences have not disappeared; they are more engaged than ever and we are ready to meet them on their terms. By bridging the unique storytelling of premium broadcasting with the democratic and expansive power of a platform like YouTube, we can unlock the following: We embrace this future with optimism and look forward to welcoming the leaders to Edinburgh as we build the next golden age of television together. ”
Adam Hawkins, chairman of the festival’s advisory board, said: “We’re thrilled to welcome Pedro to the festival. He’s a pioneer in the next wave of television. I think Pedro’s McTaggart will be provocative, exciting and a much-needed piece of work that will reset the way we think about the industry we all love.”
Previous McTaggart speakers include Michaela Coel, Elizabeth Murdoch and Jack Thorne.
The Edinburgh Television Festival is supported by Screen Scotland.
