Visual effects and animation house DNEG--with studios in London, Vancouver, Mumbai, Los Angeles, Chennai, Montréal and Chandigarh--has appointed Paul Salvini as global chief technology officer.

DNEG 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.

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: visual effects for film and episodic content, feature animation, stereo conversion, virtual production and its ReDefine division, which serves expanding international markets 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, ranked in the Top 5 for companies of its type worldwide and number one in Canada. The company has helped launch and support over 120 technology-based businesses in the last few years, working in a wide range of areas from data science, AI, computer vision and robotics to autonomous vehicles.

Salvini said: “Technology and science is playing an ever-more important role in the art and creativity of storytelling. 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 honor for me to have the opportunity to explore the possibilities with a global leader of the caliber of DNEG.”  

In addition to his extensive professional experience, Salvini also has a strong academic research background. He served as associate VP of research commercialization at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. 

DNEG CEO Namit Malhotra said: “Paul has a huge breadth of technical, academic and managerial experience and an entrepreneurial edge which makes him the perfect addition to our senior team as we begin the next phase of DNEG’s journey.”

Malhotra added, “If 2020 has done anything, it has proven the need for more innovation, more flexibility and new ways of thinking in order to continue offering the highest levels of quality and support to our filmmaking clients. With Paul’s strategic vision and direction, and our aspiration to be the very best in everything that we do, we are building a spirit of innovation that will rewrite ‘what’s next’ for our industry.”