Brevity elects O’Brien as President and CEO

Brevity, provider of transcoding and transport services based in New York City, has elected Timothy O’Brien as President and CEO. O’Brien will succeed Jacob Bronstein, one of Brevity’s original two founders, who now assumes leadership of key areas including product development and strategy.

“Brevity has seen phenomenal growth in the past six months. Many leaders in the broadcast, production and post communities have now experienced the speed, simplicity and workflow effectiveness of Brevity, resulting in immediate demand for our solution,” said Bronstein, Founder, Brevity. “Similarly, we need to make sure we’re providing the market with a comprehensive and ambitious vision. Today’s announcement enables Brevity to optimize our organization to achieve this dual goal. O’Brien is an experienced and capable leader whom I have enjoyed working with and in whom I have deep confidence.”

An example of Brevity’s growing market traction is evidenced by its current support for NBC Olympics. Brevity is providing integrated transcode and transport support of graphics files to NBC Olympics during its production of the London 2012 Olympic Games from July 27- August 12, 2012.

As President and CEO, Timothy O’Brien brings a wealth of experience to lead Brevity Ventures’ growth strategy and business. After working decades in start-ups and major companies such as IBM Global Services Media & Entertainment and Yahoo, Timothy brings both the entrepreneurial spirit, sales leadership, and proven operational experience required to lead Brevity to the next stage of its evolution and growth. Timothy worked with Brevity starting in May 2011 as an advisor to develop the business strategy, operationalise the company, drive institutional financing efforts, and bring the V3 solution to market. He became COO of Brevity in October of 2011 and President in April of 2012.

Commenting on the appointment, Timothy O’Brien noted, “Jacob has achieved something extremely rare and special in Brevity. As a result, the company is transforming the broadcast, production and postproduction communities with a truly innovative and imminently useful offering. I am pleased to take on the additional responsibilities as CEO and am determined to keep this company as an force for innovation, a catalyst for progressive change and an agent for growth.”

Prior to Brevity, O’Brien was Vice President, Video Services, for Yahoo from 2008 to 2010. In this role, he was responsible for the delivery of creative and professional services required for Yahoo and its global partners to monetise video across their online platforms. He joined Yahoo as a result of an acquisition of Maven Networks of Cambridge, MA in 2008.

At Maven, O’Brien was Vice President of Media Services, responsible for deploying in just one year over 30 enterprise customers in the US and Europe that lead to the Yahoo acquisition. O’Brien was responsible for leading the company’s Professional Services, Creative Services, Media Network Operations & Customer Support teams, and was the executive in charge of day-to-day relationships with its media customers and partners.

Before Yahoo, O’Brien served as Partner and Practice Leader in IBM Global Services’ Media and Entertainment industry practice in North America and Asia, where he was responsible for more than $100 million annually in digital media services engagements. He was one of the principal designers of IBM’s Digital Media Factory, an end-to-end framework that enabled rich media content to be managed and distributed for a wide range of networks and devices — PCs, mobile phones, set-top boxes, kiosks, and game platforms.

“It’s been an honour to be the CEO of Brevity and to lead such a world-class team,” said Bronstein. “And I can say with confidence that we are just getting started.”