Jay Itzkowitz
Photo: LinkedIn

[Via Satellite 10-07-13] Global Eagle Entertainment has selected Jay Itzkowitz as senior vice president and general counsel of the company. As head of the organization’s legal team, Itzkowitz is responsible for Global Eagle’s worldwide legal affairs during the company’s multi-faceted growth strategy.

“Jay is an outstanding attorney who brings to Global Eagle extensive legal and business experience in the media, entertainment, satellite communications and finance industries in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, compliance, corporate governance and financial transactions,” said Dave Davis, CFO of Global Eagle Entertainment.

Before joining Global Eagle, Itzkowitz spent 10 years at News Corporation, where he held senior legal positions at the Fox businesses in Los Angeles, then at News International in London, and then at Sky Global in New York. He played a key role in numerous acquisitions and worked extensively in the satellite and pay television businesses, including with Star TV in Hong Kong, BSkyB in the United Kingdom, where he was an alternate board member, and in Italy where he was a board member of the company that is now Sky Italia. He also worked extensively in Germany, supervising the acquisition of the predecessor company to Sky Deutschland. Itzkowitz then joined Vivendi Universal as a senior executive where he was head of mergers and acquisitions, working in Paris and New York. For the eight years immediately prior to joining Global Eagle he was a partner and senior managing firector in the London office of Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial services firm, where he played a significant role in many acquisitions made by Cantor around the world. Itzkowitz started his legal career as a corporate associate at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison in New York and has also been of counsel to the international law firm Hogan Lovells.