Base79, the biggest network of YouTube channels outside the United States, has hired YouTube executive Patrick Walker as its chief content officer, the company said on Monday. Walker, who was the senior director of content partnerships at YouTube, will both pursue similar partnerships with emerging creators and oversee programming strategy for Base79's network.
Walker was Google's first hire at YouTube outside of North America, a fitting hire for a company that operates more than 800 channels and dubs itself "The International Network for Video Creators, Content Owners & Brands."
"My number one goal is to find new partners and help them, and our current clients succeed in a global, multi-device, multi-platform online video market," Walker said in a statement. "For Base79 right now the opportunities are practically unlimited, it's really a question of where to place our bets next. Watch this space."
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While at YouTube, Walker made deals with the BBC and the Beijing Olympics, as well as a deal that brought older TV episodes from the UK's Channel to the world's largest online video platform. Base79 boasts partnerships with BBC Worldwide, IMG Media and Guinness World Records.
The company has raised two different significant investments over the past year, one from Evolution Media Growth Partners, the investing arm of the CAA-affiliated bank Evolution Media Capital, and another from the Chernin Group, which earned a stake in the company somewhere between 20 and 30 percent.
"Attracting global talent of Patrick's caliber should really send a powerful message about the bright future for MCNs like Base79," Ashley MacKenzie, founder and CEO of Base79 said in a statement. "Just as we've seen the smart money from the US begin to be seriously invested in this space, the people are now starting to follow. Patrick's blazed a trail wherever he's gone, and his international ambitions match our own."