MIPTV announces yesterday that Izzet Pinto, Founder & CEO, Global Agency is among the people who will be awarded with its 2018 Médailles d’Honneur. The list includes also Pascal Breton, CEO, Federation Entertainment (France), Teresa Fernández-Valdés, Executive Producer, Bambú Producciones (Spain), and Weidong Yang, President of Youku, Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group (China).

Izzet Pinto was born in Istanbul in 1978. After his graduation from Stratford College in the USA, he went to Thailand and worked in the trading business for several years. Upon returning to Turkey, between 2004 and 2006, he represented Turkey’s bestselling authors. In 2006 he founded Global Agency with Turkey’s first local TV format ‘Perfect Bride.’ Since 2006, Global Agency has become one of the fastest-growing distributors in the world, representing some 150 projects including ‘Magnificent Century’, ‘1001 Nights’, ‘Broken Pieces’, ‘Keep Your Light Shining’, ‘Perfect Bride’, ‘Shopping Monsters’and ‘The Remix’. In 2008, Izzet Pinto received the Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the non-profit, international organization Junior Chamber International. Today, Global Agency is known as one of the world’s leading independent distributors, acquiring and producing its own hit formats with offices in Turkey, France, the UK and Spain.

“It is a great honour to recognise these four exceptional industry figures, who have each, in their own way, made and continue to make major contributions to the international entertainment content sector, and whose vision and leadership set the standards in their respective fields,” said Laurine Garaude, Director, TV Division, Reed MIDEM, which organizes MIPTV.

The flagship and leading global TV and digital content market, MIPTV takes place in Cannes, France from 9-12 April 2018. CANNESERIES takes place alongside MIPTV and In Development as part of the biggest week in TV.