Karol Martesko-Fenster

Karol Martesko-Fenster (born March 12, 1961) is an American entertainment and media innovator and entrepreneur with over two decades of leadership roles in the motion picture, publishing, event, broadcast, and Internet industries.

Martesko-Fenster is the Founder and Chief Content Officer of Thought Engine Partners and the Chief Operating Officer/Partner of specialized theatrical film distributor, and global rights management enterprise, Abramorama.[1] His past work includes a stint at Babel Networks providing strategic consulting services to numerous film and media ventures, including Arts Alliance, FILMHAUS Vienna, T5M, Tribeca Enterprises, CINELAN and Learn Do Share. As the EVP of Babel Networks US, Martesko-Fenster led the film and animation division for Babelgum, the global web, mobile and IPTV destination.[2] Previously, Martesko-Fenster was Head of the Film Division at Chris Blackwell's Palm Pictures Entertainment Properties and President of Palm's RES Media Group.[3] During his five-year tenure he supervised the strategic re-organization of the film division and oversaw the company's successful theatrical releases of Scratch and Sex and Lucia. While at Palm, he led all operations and brand positioning for the RES Media Group business unit, including its digital film festival RESFest, the world's original digital arts and entertainment festival,[4] which in its final year (2006) was a global touring event spanning six continents, 19 countries and over 40 cities worldwide.

Prior to joining Palm, Martesko-Fenster was the President of Rising Tide Studios, an integrated media and convergence company founded by Jason Calacanis. As President & Publisher Martesko-Fenster supervised the growth and development of the Silicon Alley Reporter [5] and Digital Coast Reporter magazines and numerous high-profile conferences on the Media, Finance and Technology Industries.

In the mid 1990s Martesko-Fenster co-founded and launched Filmmaker, IndieWire, RES (magazine), and The Virtual FilmFestival.[6] Martesko-Fenster was the Market Director for the seminal 1989 Independent Feature Film Market, the inaugural event at the Angelika Film Center. In 1990, as the Acting Executive Director of the Independent Feature Project, Martesko-Fenster restructured the nation's leading film service organization and co-initiated the inaugural Gotham Awards.

In the late 1980s Martesko-Fenster was a coordinating producer for Great Performances Music on PBS and produced over 20 music television programs and five live satellite broadcasts, including; Gala of Stars, James Levine's Mozart in Salzburg, Celebrating Gershwin: S’Wonderful & The Jazz Age, Herbert von Karajan's Don Giovanni, Hal Prince's Madama Butterfly, Pavarotti Returns to Naples and From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration with Walter Cronkite.

Throughout his career, Martesko-Fenster has been at the forefront of new developments and paradigm shifting technologies. He is credited with the first global digital release of a feature film via iTunes prior to its traditional release (Big Easy Express), the pioneering episodic mobile distribution of a feature film (Sally Potter's Rage), and releasing nine prequels on the web during the production of the award-winning feature documentary, The Bengali Detective.

Martesko-Fenster via the company he co-founded - Cinelan - produced the Webby Award-winning program, WE THE ECONOMY 20 Short Films You Can't Afford To Miss (’15),[7] FOCUS FORWARD - Short Films, Big Ideas (’13),[8] Rage (’10),[9] epitonic.com (’03), indiewire.com (’03 & ’01),[10] and sputnik7.com (’01).[11] Martesko-Fenster has appeared in numerous international publications and is a frequent speaker at media events around the globe with a particular concentration on transformative entrepreneurship and immersive video-centric cross platform content applications.[12] Current and past boards include The Wall Street Theater, Rightster, BellaGaia, Learn Do Share, The Film Collaborative, Rising Tide Studios, and the Hamptons International and LA Independent Film Festivals.

Born in Vienna, Austria, Martesko-Fenster has lived in over 20 cities internationally, and is culturally fluent in German and English. He received a B.A. from SUNY Purchase and an M.F.A. from Columbia University with a concentration in entertainment law, theater management and film production.