FilmHedge Appoints Josh Harris as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer

By Staff Writer Atlanta Trend

• Jan 30, 2023

FilmHedge, the entertainment industry's leading non-equity financiers for film and television productions, has appointed Josh Harris (a FilmHedge co-founder) as both Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Harris will lead strategy, underwriting, and operations for the company, identifying new ways to secure and deploy capital investments in film, TV, and media projects.

As the company scales to meet an increase in market demand for financial products and services, Harris will play a critical role in creating the processes needed to ensure deal flow is providing stakeholder value. In his 20-plus years in institutional finance, Harris worked as a lender and in leadership for top banks like RBC and Wells Fargo, supporting their corporate and commercial banking platforms. Most recently, he grew the entertainment financing division at City National Bank, an RBC company, helping to increase returns and expand the entertainment portfolio of businesses. "Our business is at an inflection point and it's time to have a dedicated leader and voice to oversee operations and the lending process from start to finish," said FilmHedge Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jon Gosier. "Josh is an instrumental part of our executive team as a board member and co-founder, helping us secure our debt deal earlier this year and he has the creativity to improve how we deliver financial products to filmmakers.

Josh's acumen and experience in the C-suite will be vital to the growth of FilmHedge, as we continue to see a greater usage rate on our platform. "Harris is steeped in regulatory know-how and leverages his training and experience in financial services to forecast trends and anticipate market dynamics. His involvement in the entertainment financing vertical and working closely with studios, film, and television has resulted in Harris building a vast influential network at the nexus of Hollywood and Wall Street. "I've had a front row seat for the dramatic changes happening across the entertainment landscape over the last decade," said Harris. "Technology and streaming has rewired entertainment consumption forever, pushing Hollywood to produce more content at greater speed. FilmHedge is built at the intersection of technology and entertainment and is uniquely positioned to influence the evolution of the film industry by creating efficiencies while deploying much needed private capital into a diverse marketplace. I'm thrilled to officially join the company's executive team at this important moment."

As more filmmakers seek capital outside of traditional investment avenues, the company hopes to be a one-stop-shop for easy-to-access funding and technology services to support budgeting and production. The FilmHedge model focuses on identifying 'bonded' film projects with adequate collateral as well as city and state tax incentives to support production. The average return on transactions through FilmHedge in the last year was 11.28%, above industry averages.