A Kenyan has just landed a big job at one of the biggest film studios in the world.
Hezron Karanja has been appointed Vice President of Finance at Paramount Pictures Corporation. Karanja, who lives in California, has been with Paramount since 2007 starting as a Sr. Financial Analyst, working his way to Finance Manager. Between 2012 and 2014, he took a sabbatical to attend Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and on return hes was appointed Director of Finance for Television.
Though he has been with Paramount since 2007, Mr. Karanja has been in the entertainment industry since 2001. He is a former senior staff accountant at Universal Studios and a staff accountant at 21st Century Fox. He has also worked for Bank of New York Capital Investment, State Street Financial Corporation and the Clinton Foundation.
With his new position, Mr. Karanja will be responsible for licensing Paramount content through digital platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, iTunes etc. Plus other traditional clients such as airlines, maritime vessels etc. He will also be responsible for financing new content for the studio.
Mr. Karanja is not forgetting his roots. He told Jamhuri News that they have a strategy for Sub Saharan Africa. “We have a goal to penetrate every section of the sub Saharan Africa and to bring quality content in film and art to millions of Africans straight to their mobile devices. 90% of millennial Africans have a phone and it is imperative that we tap this new platform with which we intend to reach our full potential of content delivery”. He said.
Mr. Karanja has been in the US since 1997.
Paramount Pictures is the 6th biggest film studio in the world behind 21st Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney, Warner Bros and Sony Pictures/Columbia. Some estimates place it in the top 5.
Some of Paramount’s biggest movie franchises are: Transformers, Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Terminator, G.I. Joe, Iron Man and Shrek.
They’ve also produced some incredibly successful one-offs over the years like Titanic, World War Z, Interstellar, The Wolf of Wall Street, Jackass 3D and Face/Off
