Ottawa’s Gusto Worldwide Media has hired Corey Caplan as senior director of international sales.

Based in Toronto, Caplan, who is the former director of international sales at Portfolio Entertainment, will work on expanding the global reach of Gusto’s catalogue of lifestyle content, as well as representing the company at major TV markets such as MIPCOM and Asia TV Forum. Working closely with Gusto’s president and CEO Chris Knight, Caplan will also be tasked with helping to launch Gusto TV as a linear channel in various international territories.

The hire announcement comes one week after Gusto revealed it would launch its first overseas linear channel in Singapore next month via the pay-TV operator StarHub TV and StarHub’s OTT service, StarHub Go.

Caplan has a decade of experience working in television distribution. Prior to his six years with Portfolio, Caplan worked on the distribution and development team at Toronto’s Summerhill Entertainment.

Over the past couple of years the prodco has expanded its operations. In December 2017, Gusto opened a new 13,000 square-foot TV studio and head office in Ottawa. At the time, Knight told Playback Daily that the company’s more than $1 million investment in the new studio space was made possible through its deal with Bell Media, which acquired the rights to the Gusto TV brand in Canada and launched a food-focused lifestyle channel in 2016. Bell Media recently revealed that it would rebrand its four specialty channels, including its Gusto channel, under the company’s CTV banner.