Ricardo Minari is a seasoned professional with more than two decades of expertise in the intersection of technology, business development, and innovation within the media tech industry. As the Director of Global Partnerships at Ateme, a leading French media tech company renowned for cutting-edge technologies for video encoding and delivery, he plays a pivotal role in empowering customers to captivate global audiences. With great experience and industry insights, he is sought after as a renowned speaker at international conferences and a respected content creator on LinkedIn.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with Digital First Magazine, Ricardo shared his insights on the key trends shaping the OTT market today, current roles and responsibilities at Ateme, personal role model, future plans, and a lot more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
According to you, what are the key trends shaping the OTT video market today?
With the subscription fatigue (lots of streaming platforms pilling up the bills), certainly we will see the rise of varied monetization models, such as, FAST (Free Ad Supported Television), AVOD (Ad VOD), T-VOD (Transact VOD) and Telecom Operators Bundled Packages.
AI is starting to be incorporated on all layers of technology ecosystem: video automation, content creation, content/channel personalization, recommendation and curation.
Another trend we are foreseeing is Content highlight detection, helping viewers to not only find the right content, but also the right moments inside those contents.
Talking about devices, we see the consolidation of smart TV as the preferred device to watch OTT content. Smart TV Sales are booming and improvements on the UX is leading people to prefer using this device as the main screen.
What factors drive the success of video streaming services?
Content will always be the king, but good content is not enough anymore.
Streaming platforms will need to find the right balance between good content, good user experience, good recommendation engines and good distribution.
There are tons of contents out there.
OTT Platforms will need to find a way to promote this content wisely and make sure they can generate the right buzz around it, bringing viewers to that content and make it reverberate inside social networks.
As soon as they get viewers’ attention, they will need to make sure they captivate this audience with the right experience offering a good UX, good video quality, low buffering and low latency.
Finally, learning throughout the entire customer journey, collecting the right data, is key to creating intelligence and turning the experience more and more personalized.
Describe your background and what did you do before you joined Ateme?
I started my career as a developer, most part of the time working with real time embedded software development, first inside the Space Industry, later for Defense (developing warlike simulators) and, later on, programming set top boxes inside the video industry.
After 15 years programming, I was a little bit bored and decided to engage in the executive career working for different companies and different roles: CTO for Set Box Manufacturer (Visiontec), Business Development Director for Chipset Company (Ali Corp) and Vice President Latin America at SeaChange.
Finally, I joined Ateme as Vice President of Business Development, transitioning two years later to Global Director of Partnerships position.
As the Director of Global Partnerships, what are your primary roles and responsibilities at Ateme?
Media tech industry has a complex ecosystem where you will never be able to offer all the pieces together, unless you are surrounded by a great number of partners.
Having it in mind, I am responsible for (inside a team) bringing all these pieces together, define the global partnership strategy, work on the partners relationship management, identify opportunities and mediate the conversation between Ateme sales team and Partner sales team.
What do you love the most (and the least) about your job?
I have the privilege of working in a people centered company where respect, care and innovation is in the core, so every day I have a new opportunity to fulfill my passions: traveling around the world, generating business opportunities and friends by connecting great people to innovative technology.
No reason to complain.
How are you helping young people build their careers in your community?
I do regular mentorship sessions with young and brilliant people, and I am humbled to see a good number of them doing great in their careers.
Besides the mentorships I also contribute a lot creating content on LinkedIn, posting hundreds of works and life experience stories, trying to bring insights and, more than that, to show that nobody is perfect and making mistakes is part of our learning and evolutional process.
For the future, I am working to restart my YouTube channel and, finally, publish my book.
As a techie, who’s your inspiration and why?
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, due to his visionary leadership, empathy and emotional intelligence combined to his commitment to social impact.
In my opinion, his leadership was one of the key reasons for Microsoft’s resurgence and growth recently.
What are the aims and ideals that guide you as an individual and a professional?
For me, it’s difficult to separate the individual from professional life nowadays.
After the pandemic and working from home, both things are kind of mixed for me.
No matter where you are, you need to put people first: take care of your family, take care of your team and act like a supporter, being there as an instrument to help people growth.
This is how I try to be as a leader, as a husband, as a father and as a son.
Where would you like to be in the next 5 years?
C-Level position of a Global Tech company.
What piece of advice would you give to someone who is looking to make a career in the media tech industry?
Study. This is a very dynamic industry so never stop learning.
Treat people with kindness. This is a very small industry and people will remember you, for the good or for the bad.