Turner Asia Pacific has appointed Vishal Dembla as Vice President and General Manager of its newly established Southeast Asia division. Based in Singapore, Dembla will be tasked with growing Turner’s commercial and channel operations within Southeast Asia, as well as the day-to-day management of its regional kids’ content and entertainment businesses.
In addition to heading all commercial aspects, including ad and content sales, Dembla will oversee programming, creative services and marketing for all Turner kids brands in SE Asia. The department Dembla heads will also handle regional network distribution and focus on extending the reach of flagship kids’ channels Cartoon Network and Boomerang, plus CNN International, Warner TV and Oh!K.
Turner Asia Pacific as a whole currently runs 61 channels in 40 countries, broadcast in 14 languages.
“For the first time, we have aligned all our Southeast Asia efforts under one executive, and these changes will enable Turner to better develop its growing business in this region,” said Phil Nelson, Turner’s Managing Director of Southeast Asia Pacific and North Asia. “Vishal has been an integral member of our senior management team – forging new initiatives and driving growth – and is well-positioned for this new role.”
Dembla’s appointment to VP and GM of Southeast Asia operations expands his previous responsibilities, heading Turner’s distribution and content sales in Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines (the new position adds Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia to his purview). Prior to being named VP for Hong Kong & Southeast Asia in 2015, Dembla spearheaded for Turner the launch of Toonami, Boomerang and POGO in Thailand, and was part of the team that developed Korean entertainment channel Oh!K. Dembla joined Turner APAC’s business development team in 2010. He is a graduate of Jai Hind College and holds an MBA from INSEAD.
