Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters is in Poland this week as the streamer opens a new hub.
The Warsaw office includes Netflix’s only technology hub outside of the U.S., it said. Bringing together 300 staff, it will house the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) creative team alongside designers, product executives, marketing, communications and finance. The plan is to expand over the next few years with “additional focus on infrastructure, gaming and production technology,” Netflix said.
Peters is in one of Netflix’s most crucial European territories to cut the ribbon. Netflix launched in Poland in 2016 and quickly realized the territory – a gateway to CEE with a hefty talent base and a population of nearly 40 million – was an important one. By 2019 the streamer had expanded to other CEE nations and in 2022 it opened its first Warsaw office, with a dedicated technolgy hub coming the following year.
“I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved in Poland over the last decade,” said Peters, as Netflix flagged more than 700 films and series produced and licensed in Poland over the past decade. “Poland is home to outstanding creative talent, and together with our partners we’ve brought some of the country’s best stories to audiences across Central and Eastern Europe. At the same time, our engineers here are building cutting‑edge innovation supporting how films and series are made, managed and delivered to more than half a billion people worldwide.”
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Netflix is active across CEE but Poland has always been its focal point in the region. Big projects include Heweliusz, High Water and Harlan Coben adaptations. Upcoming is an adaptation of beloved Polish classic The Doll and a local version of Love Is Blind.
Late last year, content boss Łukasz Kłuskiewicz told us Netflix Poland had been given a vote of confidence by its American bosses after greenlighting Heweliusz, one of the biggest Polish series of all time. Things have not always been plain sailing in the region, however. In 2019, Netflix amended a Polish docuseries about concentration camps after drawing the ire of then-Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, while a consumer watchdog recently accused Netflix of hiking subscripion fees in the nation without consent.