Industry veteran’s broadcast experience to support customers through IP transformation

Imagine Communications has appointed Stephan Heimbecher as its new international director of consulting services, based out of Munich, Germany. Heimbecher joins Imagine Communications from Sky Deutschland, where he spent the last 16 years at the helm of innovation and standards for the German media company.

In his new role at Imagine Communications, Heimbecher will lead a team of industry experts focused on collaborating with customers to solve significant challenges that currently face the broadcast and media industries.  In an effort to enable customers around the world, Imagine has focused its innovation efforts around IP production and playout, hybrid and IP facility implementation, cloud and virtualized deployment for playout and distribution, and multiplatform delivery and operations across traditional and OTT platforms.  Imagine’s leadership in these areas has resulted in dozens of pioneering projects that have enabled its customers to transform their businesses and operations to thrive in a next-generation media landscape.  Heimbecher and his team will bring this broad range of technologies, expertise, and successful deployment models to Imagine’s customer base to develop migration strategies that enable its customers to move forward at their own pace.

Heimbecher brings with him over 25 years experience in the broadcast industry, a journey that started when he joined the ranks of the world-renowned Institut für Rundfunktechnik (IRT) as a research associate before moving into consulting around the topics of digital and interactive TV.  For over 20 of those years in the industry, Heimbecher has been involved in the development of standards as a longtime member of the DVB Steering Board through SMPTE and more recently the ITU and IEC, as well as other standards bodies and industry associations including the UHD Alliance and the Ultra HD Forum. Within the German TV Platform, he has been a board member and working group chairman, Ultra HD & VR, for many years.

“We are delighted to welcome Stephan to the Imagine Communications team, and we look forward to seeing him lead our new consulting initiatives in APAC and EMEA and reinforcing the IP experience we have already gained through the deployment of a significant number of projects around the world,” said Mathias Eckert, SVP & GM, EMEA/APAC, Playout & Networking Solutions, at Imagine Communications.

“As one of the broadcast industry’s IP transformation market leaders, Imagine Communications, under the guidance and creativity of Stephan, looks forward to offering even more services to help guide and educate our APAC and EMEA customers as they move along on their journey to IP, wherever they are in their transition process.”

Heimbecher holds a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications engineering from Fachhochschule Krefeld.

For more information, please visit www.imaginecommunications.com

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About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, future-proof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission-critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation, we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the industry. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.