Acquisition International - Global CFO Excellence Awards 2023 23 Quickplay is leading the way in cloud transformation of OTT and in-home experiences for pay-tv, telcos, and MVPDs globally. It has created an industry-first, cloud-native platform that leverages a transformative, modular architecture for unparalleled performance in delivering premium video, facilitating complex use cases, and scaling to millions of viewers. May23300 uickplay is known for powering immersive sports, live experiences, and personalised entertainment on any screen. It was an early leader in cross-platform video delivery, which led to its acquisition by AT&T in 2016; Firstlight Media Ltd. and Highview Capital Partners acquired Quickplay from AT&T in 2020. It is now headquartered in Toronto, with additional locations in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Chennai, India. It is a multi-award-winning company with accolades such as 2021 Google Cloud Industry Solution Partner of the Year Award for Media & Entertainment, and a Microsoft Media & Communications 2022 Partner of the Year Award finalist, under its belt. Quickplay’s CFO, Tim Alavathil, graduated from University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1998, and spent the first 7 years of his career in public accounting roles. He left this sector in 2005 to become the Director of Financial Reporting and Accounting at Toronto-based JumpTV, a B2C IPTV company. With JumpTV Tim was instrumental in a CDN$60MM IPO and a CDN$117MM secondary offering as well as the company’s sale to NeuLion, a B2B IPTV company, in 2008. Following the acquisition, Tim served as Director of Financial Reporting and Accounting, VP Finance, SVP Finance, and Chief Accounting Officer within the NeuLion organization before being named CFO in 2017. He was actively involved in growth strategies – including the US$60MM acquisition of DivX in 2015 – and was responsible for forecasting and business modeling prior to NeuLion’s sale to Endeavor in 2018. There are several skills Tim considers to be particularly vital as CFO. These include having financial acumen, strategic thinking, possessing leadership and management skills, communication and influence, analytical and problem-solving skills, and having good business and industry knowledge. He also thinks technology proficiency and excellent ethical conduct are crucial. He realises that streaming services have been on a rollercoaster ride over the past few years, with a huge increase in consumer adoption notable during the COVID-19 pandemic. Focus has now switched to retaining those subscribers, and for streaming providers to ensure their services are kept relevant in a market with hundreds of streaming options available. Tim thinks that providers need to leverage rich data and analytics to understand how to best meet subscribers’ expectations and be ready to deploy new capabilities and features that help them capitalise on emerging opportunities. Many providers have found out that their original platforms were neither flexible nor scalable enough to quickly adapt to the market. The Quickplay team has harnessed the power of cloud-native technologies, which has cut customers’ time to market and reduced the efforts required to launch new services by up to 50%. The technology stack has provided significantly better performance, a modular approach for feature expansion, built in scalability, and security. Its faster time to market also means it has Q OTT Video Platform CFO of the Year 2023: Tim Alavathil a more agile response to new technologies that will help retain or monetise subscribers. It also enables rapid and cost-effective testing of new features, spurring innovation by reducing the costs of failure, and shortening the time to success. As the CFO, Tim brings a leadership style that combines strategic vision, collaboration, and accountability. He believes in setting clear goals and objectives for the finance team, and ensuring they are aligned with the overall strategic direction of the organisation. He strives for a culture of collaboration and open communication, where everyone’s input and expertise is valued equally. He advises anyone walking a similar path to develop a strong financial skill set through education, and by gaining a background in finance, accounting, and business. He recommends seeking opportunities to work in as many different areas of finance as possible, so as to provide a broad understanding and diverse experience. To be a successful CFO requires the ability to analyse complex financial data, identify trends, and derive meaningful insights. Tim also thinks that CFOs should embrace technology and data analytics, keep up to date with advancements in fintech, and leverage automation. For Quickplay, the goals are straightforward as it wants to continue its position at the leading edge, and help customers to make the most out of growth opportunities in OTT. On a personal level, as well as continuing his own professional development opportunities through courses, industry conferences, networking, and expanding his knowledge, Tim would also like to continue mentoring junior professionals, and offer guidance to those aspiring to become future finance leaders. Quickplay now has another award to add to its growing list as the Global CFO Excellence Awards have bestowed upon it OTT Video Platform CFO of the Year 2023: Tim Alavathil. Well done to Tim, a much admired and truly worthy winner. Contact Details Company: Quickplay Web Address: www.quickplay.com Contact Name: Tim Alavathil
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