Esteban Apraez | Founder & CEO

Esteban Apraez is the founder and CEO of Berlin based Papaya Media & Entertainment GmbH – a global content and creative solutions boutique firm working with the leading companies across media and entertainment that include: Discovery Communications, Eurosport, bwin, beIN Sports, DFL/ Bundesliga, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Pulse Films and Havaianas to name just a few.

Esteban is also the founder of Football TV Media Ventures GmbH, the company overseeing Football TV (www.gofootball.tv), its entertainment focused Football OTT D2C product currently in development.

Prior to founding these companies, Esteban spent six years at ESPN/Disney, first assisting with the launch of ESPN Deportes (the Spanish language channel for the U.S. market), and then as a senior executive, focused on the company's international business where he created and ran the International Marketing Solutions group – the division (in-house agency) inside of ESPN charged with delivering global marketing solutions to the world’s biggest advertisers across 200 countries and 47 owned properties. During his tenure he also spearheaded and oversaw branded and digital content efforts globally and created/executive produced various original series, including Capitales del Futbol its most successful international original content franchise. The series was a partnership with Academy Award® winning director Juan Jose Campenalla’s 100 Bares productions and MasterCard Worldwide.

Extending the format into Basketball, Esteban also created an innovative production and marketing partnership with Turkish Airlines and Euroleague Basketball, culminating in Basketball Capitals Presented by Turkish Airlines – a TV mini-series and accompanying marketing platform that premiered across 130 million TV households in Europe, Middle East & Africa, and tens of thousands of in-flight screens, immediately becoming a critical and audience hit.

The latter, in addition to his work for the likes of Samsung, KIA, FedEx, Budweiser, and P&G to name just a few, has earned him awards and accolades including three Clios®, the The PromaxBDA Grand Prix Award, Multiple Telly awards, the Grand Prix for Innovation by the Internationalist, distinctions from The Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts, as well as being recognized by industry bible Adweek for developing the Best Media Plan of 2012.

Before joining ESPN, Esteban’s career spanned internet startups, advertising, music majors and indies. He helped launch the largest worldwide music portal in Spanish & Portuguese, won multiple Grammy® Awards as founding member of a joint venture between Arista & BMG Latin, served as manager of worldwide marketing for the Bertelsmann Music Group (now Sony Music), finally co-founding an indie label distributed by Sony Music. During his brief career in advertising he helped secure and managed the Johnny Walker® (Diageo) business for the largest multicultural advertising agency at the time.

Esteban holds a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University. He’s been a speaker at conferences such as TV & Film Finance Forum, SXSW, LAMC, MIDEM and Portada, whose work has received coverage and recognition from the likes of The New York Times, The Atlantic, Billboard Magazine, Sports Business Journal, AdAge, Adweek, The Miami New Times to name a few..

Esteban is originally from Colombia and grew up in Ecuador, France and Mexico, before finally settling in NYC at the age of 13. He went on to spend the next three decades there prior to moving to Berlin and launching his companies. Currently Esteban, his wife and three children reside in Luzern, Switzerland.