Payroll and software services firm Ease Entertainment Services has announced the appointment of several key executives and team members, including naming Craig Dougherty as chief financial officer.
Dougherty will oversee all financial aspects of Ease Entertainment and will report to founder/CEO Mike Rose (pictured left). The company recently debuted its next generation of services, including the industry’s first Digital Start Packets system, Automated Time Cards and its Closed-Loop Security suite of tools, which provides unparalleled control over the distribution of sensitive production information, including budgets, data and scripts.
A well-respected executive within the financial and entertainment spaces, Dougherty (pictured right) most recently served as COO of boutique asset management firm Fusion Analytics Holdings. He began his career at Union Bank, founding and building their entertainment & media finance group before serving as the president of the bank’s Private Capital Group.
After 20 years at Union Bank, Dougherty joined ReplayTV, co-inventor of the DVR, in 1999 as CFO, where he managed strategic and venture investors, oversaw IP licensing and engineered the successful sale of the company. He subsequently served as CFO of Silk Trading Co. and as an executive with a handful of new media start-ups. In 2008, Dougherty teamed with Stuart McLean to co-found Content & Company, a studio that creates and distributes original content for Fortune 100 brands across multiple platforms.
Ease also announced that Juli Totta has been named senior VP of business affairs. Totta comes to Ease Entertainment with 27 years of entertainment payroll experience, including her recent roles at Cast & Crew as director of payroll and director of labor relations.
“Ease Entertainment is in the enviable position of strategically growing our company, as our production software and payroll services become known as the best and most advanced in the industry,” said Rose. “We are staffing up with the most experienced, knowledgeable and technologically gifted team working in this specialized space today. Craig, Juli and all of the amazing executives who are joining Ease add to the deep bench of talent that our company is attracting.”
In addition to Dougherty and Totta, other key Ease Entertainment hires include Jodi Steagall as VP of sales and marketing; Amit Jagwani as director of sales and marketing; Caitlin Bogert-Upton as director of sales and marketing; Jeff Smith as senior account manager; and Joseph Bernatowicz as director of residuals.Steagall has over 15 years of experience in the entertainment industry and was most recently the director of sales and marketing at Entertainment Partners.
Jagwani most recently worked as a production auditor at Universal on both the film and television sides of the business, covering finance and production operations for Universal Pictures, NBC Universal and its family of networks.
Bogert-Upton began her work in the entertainment industry working for Entertainment Partners’ Central Casting where she spent two years as a casting director on shows including “CSI: Miami” and “How I Met Your Mother.” She then spent the next eight years as manager of product sales and product management at Entertainment Partners.
Smith returns to Ease Entertainment after working at DreamWorks and Entertainment Partners, where he was most recently a senior account manager for four years.
Bernatowicz brings 10 years of extensive experience, specializing in all facets of residuals reporting and payment processing for film and television products.
Bison Capital recently closed a major investment in Ease Entertainment Services — an investment that marks the second major financial move Ease has made in the last 24 months, having acquired Scenechronize in 2012.