Conrad Clemson named CEO as EditShare takes on a majority investment from ParkerGale and plots plan to scale up its business and migrate its media asset collaboration and management platform to the cloud.

Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor

May 20, 2019

4 Min Read
Former Cisco Exec Takes Helm of EditShare

Conrad Clemson, a former exec with Cisco Systems, has been named CEO of media asset storage and management specialist EditShare following a majority investment in the company by ParkerGale Capital.

EditShare says it is profitable and has more than 2,000 customers worldwide, but the capital infusion and appointment of Clemson enters the picture as the Boston-based company looks to grow its business and cloudify its media asset management infrastructure.

Clemson is taking the helm of EditShare more than a year after he departed Cisco. Clemson most recently was SVP of Cisco's Service Provider Video Software and Solutions group, which has since been sold to Synamedia. He joined Cisco in 2011 via Cisco's $99 million acquisition of BNI Video, a startup that developed multiscreen video back office systems. Clemson is also a former exec of Broadbus Technologies (a video server startup sold to Motorola in 2006), Gotham Networks and Lucent Technologies.

EditShare's competitors include Avid and Quantum Corp. in what Clemson views as a "highly fragmented market" that is ripe for an aggressive move by EditShare.

EditShare believes the fresh capital coming way of ParkerGale (the amount was not disclosed) and the addition of Clemson as CEO will enable the company to grow more quickly.

"The opportunity and challenge that we face with EditShare is … they need just a little more capital and time to capitalize on that," Clemson said.

"We have more ideas than we've been able to implement," added Andy Liebman, a company co-founder who had been serving as CEO, Americas, and is now chief strategy officer under the new structure. "We're profitable, but it's not enough to bring a company to be five times its size."

Figure 1: New Roles at EditShare Conrad Clemson (left) has joined EditShare as CEO while fellow company co-founders Andy Liebman (middle) and Tara Montford take on the respective roles of chief strategy officer and EVP, business development. Following the majority investment by ParkerGale, Liebman and Montford become the largest individual shareholders in EditShare. Conrad Clemson (left) has joined EditShare as CEO while fellow company co-founders Andy Liebman (middle) and Tara Montford take on the respective roles of chief strategy officer and EVP, business development. Following the majority investment by ParkerGale, Liebman and Montford become the largest individual shareholders in EditShare.

As for next steps, Clemson said he would be filling out the company's management team and investing in the company's sales force and in its engineering and product management teams.

Privately held EditShare does not disclose revenues, but the company, which has more than 100 employees today, says it is profitable and has been growing its base by about 100 customers per year.

Examples of EditShare's current and past customers include the Chelsea Football Club, NASCAR, the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks, Japanese broadcaster NHK, certain PBS stations, government agencies and universities such as St. Cloud State University and the Université du Québec.

Courting the cloud
Clemson and EditShare's big technology and product focus is to push the company's media asset management capabilities into the cloud, expanding on the company's earlier focus on on-premises storage and file management systems that enabled its customers to access, edit and collaborate remotely for TV shows and other video production projects.

Clemson believes that his cloud migration experience at BNI and Cisco Cisco will aid EditShare's cloud push. "We know what it looks like," he said of that cloud migration. "We know how to run the play."

Clemson noted that EditShare had begun some proofs-of-concept ahead of commercial deployment of a new, cloud-powered architecture. Using its management software as the baseline layer, EditShare is developing a cloud-powered ecosystem that will involve partners such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google, as well as suppliers that include Imagine Communications and Grass Valley.

Prior to founding EditShare in 2003, Liebman was a documentary filmmaker doing shows for programs such as Nova and Frontline as well as work for The Discovery Channel. It was during that time that he began to develop a new media asset system that allowed editors to access footage remotely rather than requiring them to copy all of that media to a local storage device. Liebman connected with fellow EditShare co-founder Tara Montford at the 2004 NAB Show in Las Vegas when Montford was in search of unified media editing tools.

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— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Jeff Baumgartner

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Jeff Baumgartner is a Senior Editor for Light Reading and is responsible for the day-to-day news coverage and analysis of the cable and video sectors. Follow him on X and LinkedIn.

Baumgartner also served as Site Editor for Light Reading Cable from 2007-2013. In between his two stints at Light Reading, he led tech coverage for Multichannel News and was a regular contributor to Broadcasting + Cable. Baumgartner was named to the 2018 class of the Cable TV Pioneers.

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