AGBO has hired executives from Snap, Apple and the studios behind “Call of Duty” and “Starfield” to lead marketing, technology and interactive production.
The company was founded by Avengers: Endgame and Captain America: Civil War filmmakers Anthony and Joe Russo, along with partners Donald Mustard and Chris Brearton. His works range from the “Extraction” series to “Everything Everywhere All at Once” to “The Gray Man.”
As part of the hiring wave, Luke Kallis joins AGBO as president of marketing and growth, tasked with building direct relationships with audiences across all mediums. He has spent 20 years building an audience platform. He joined Facebook before it had 20 million users, Vevo as music moved to digital, and Snap as Americas revenue grew from $67 million to $2.7 billion.
Alex Blickenstaff joins as Vice President of Engineering. Blickenstaff spent nearly a decade at Apple building the data engineering that powers one of the world’s largest platforms. Heath will build the technology layer that connects AGBO’s linear and interactive businesses.
Derek Racca joins AGBO as Executive Producer of Interactive, focusing on building out the company’s suite of games. He has shipped games played by hundreds of millions of people, including “Call of Duty,” “The Elder Scrolls,” “Fallout,” “Doom,” and “Starfield.” He joins AGBO from Atomic Arcade, the studio behind Wizards of the Coast.
The company also promoted Matt Davidson from chief financial officer to chief operating officer. Davidson most recently joined AGBO as CFO after serving as CFO of Amazon MGM Studios and spending 20 years at MGM.
“We are building AGBO for the next evolution of our industry,” said Chris Brearton, CEO of AGBO. “That requires a team of innovative and collaborative leaders across disciplines. Luke, Alex and Derek bring expertise in storytelling, audience growth and interactive entertainment to help us reach audiences wherever they are. Matt’s promotion to chief operating officer strengthens our leadership team with the financial and operational discipline to match our ambitions.”
The appointment comes as AGBO joins SXSW London as a lead partner this week, where partners Anthony Russo, Joe Russo and Donald Mustard will discuss building entertainment across film, games and interactive formats.
The company is preparing to release “The Whisperer,” starring Robert De Niro, this fall. “Avengers: Doomsday” will be released on Dec. 18, and “Avengers: Secret Wars” will be released in 2027. Both “Avengers” movies are co-produced by AGBO and Marvel Studios. The company is in post-production with Netflix on Tigo and Mercenary (both set within the Extraction universe), and John Rambo is in post-production with Lionsgate. Production on Extraction 3 is scheduled to begin this summer in Australia and Thailand.
