Donny Hugo Herran, a former Senior Vice President of Physical Production at Paramount, has joined CMG Productions as its U.S.-based production executive. The move brings an 18-year Paramount veteran into a UK company co-founded by two former Paramount executives — Claire McArdle and Rebecca Knight — who have run CMG as co-CEOs since 2021. Deadline

At CMG, Herran will support American content companies that want to shoot, finance and co-produce projects across the UK and Europe. His remit runs the full length of a production: development, production strategy, co-production arrangements, physical production and post-production delivery. Deadline

That pipeline is one CMG already knows well. The company has provided production services on series including MobLand and The Agency, and has worked with Netflix, Sky, ITV, Peacock and Paramount+. McArdle is known as a former Comedy Central International commissioner, and Knight as an international production executive with over 20 years in commercial and business production, according to her LinkedIn profile. Both she and McArdle are former Paramount (then Viacom) executives. Deadline; LinkedIn

Herran's background gives him a direct handle on cross-border production. During his time at Paramount, he helped build out production operations across North America, Europe and South America, working with international incentive schemes — the tax rebates and grants that governments offer to attract film and television shoots. He was also an executive in charge of production on the Taylor Sheridan Universe franchise, the sprawling slate of interconnected series that includes Yellowstone and its spin-offs. Deadline

A graduate of the University of Central Florida, Herran is credited as a producer, production executive and executive in charge, and spent 18 years across Viacom and Paramount, according to the Television Academy and a January 2026 Film Florida podcast appearance. Television Academy; Film Florida

For viewers, the hire is unlikely to surface on screen. What it touches is the machinery underneath: whether a U.S. series can lock a soundstage in London, tap a UK tax credit and co-produce with a European partner without losing weeks to logistics. That is the gap Herran has been hired to close — connecting American studios and streamers to the British and European production infrastructure that CMG already operates within.

The appointment reunites three former colleagues from the Paramount system at a company positioned between U.S. commissioning and UK delivery. No financial terms of the arrangement were disclosed.