LONDON — Global visual effects and animation company Dneg (www.dneg.com) has appointed Paul Salvini as global chief technology officer. The company has expanded substantially in recent years, adding several new business lines, new facilities in North America and India, and growing to over 7,000 employees across its global offices. Today, Dneg has studios in London, Vancouver, Mumbai, Los Angeles, Chennai, Montréal and Chandigarh.
In his new role, Salvini will be responsible for developing a new and innovative technology vision for the company, managing its global technology and R&D teams, and overseeing technology initiatives across all of its key offerings. The studio specilizes in visual effects for film and episodic content, feature animation, stereo conversion and virtual production. Its ReDefine division serves an expanding international market and independent filmmakers.
Outgoing CTO, Graham Jack, who has been with the company since 2002, is assisting with the smooth transition of responsibilities. Based in Canada, Salvini has more than 25 years of experience in C-Suite roles, including 15 years as CTO at SideFX, where he oversaw and guided the development of industry-standard visual effects and animation software tool Houdini from beta onwards. He also spent several years as CTO of audiovisual technology leader Christie Digital, where he was a key member of the global executive team, providing strategic and technical direction to the company’s 1,500 employees across 18 countries as well as conducting fundamental research into display systems in order to secure early IP for the company. Most recently, Salvini was CEO of The Accelerator Centre, a not-for-profit business accelerator that provides guidance, mentorship and support for technology start-ups.
“Technology and science is playing an ever-more important role in the art and creativity of storytelling,” says Salvini. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a hand in many firsts during my career in the entertainment industry – from enabling collaboration for a newly emerging global talent-base of artists and technicians, to the development of software and processes that have fundamentally changed what is possible to achieve digitally. I feel that we are on the cusp of the next big change in our industry, and it is an honour for me to have the opportunity to explore the possibilities with a global leader of the caliber of Dneg.”