Youku Tudou undergoes widespread restructuring

China’s leading online video platform Youku Tudou has announced its restructuring plans and new management appointments.Due to the restructuring, the company’s business units have been increased from four to six.  The company added Heyi Studios and Innovative Marketing to its current Youku and Tudou platforms, Heyi Pictures and Cloud Entertainment.Heyi Studios produces original TV dramas and innovative native content for web, and Innovative Marketing focuses on the development of programmatic advertising, video e-commerce, big data and other new marketing models.Sunny Xiangyang Zhu, the group’s chief content officer, was handed the additional role of CEO of Heyi Studios and chief marketing officer Yawei Dong will head Innovative Marketing.Meanwhile, the group has also established nine content management and production centres with each focusing on a specific genre of programming: TV dramas, news, variety shows, movies, games, animation, music, education and entertainment.Edward Su, former CEO at Havas China, will take on the role of chief operating officer, overseeing the sales team of Youku Tudou. Su has more than 19 years of experience from various 4A agencies such as Grey, Saatchi & Saatchi and Ogilvy.This marks the largest business restructuring since the merger of Youku and Tudou in 2012."The new structure of Youku Tudou's multi-business unit and content center is in place," said Victor Koo, chairman and CEO at Youku Tudou."We are well-poised to rapidly ramp up our content creation, accelerate our revenue growth and diversification, and fully capitalise on the opportunities that the converging online and offline worlds bring us."Source: Press Release