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Alex Hannell
Director of Business Affairs,
Media Business Affairs -
Russell Smith
Chairman, SDD Global
Partner, SmithDehn LLP -
Frank Dehn
Executive Vice President, SDD
GlobalPartner, Smith Dehn -
Sanjay Bhatia
Head of Operations,
SDD Global -
Michael Cleaver
Partner, SmithDehn LLP -
Vidya Devaiah
Business Affairs Manager -
Padma Shanthamurthy
Business Affairs Executive -
Preethi Venkataramu
Business Affairs Executive, Media Business Affairs -
Michelle Hubbard
Finance and Office Manager -
Abhinav Chandan
Business Affairs Executive -
Sreekanth V.R.
Head of I.T.
Our people: Russell Smith
Russell now spends more than half of each year in India, where he helps manage and develop SDD Global. Russell has 25 years of experience as a media lawyer and litigator.
- Columbia Law School graduate;
- Chairman and President of SDD Global and the founder of Smith Dehn LLP, the New York media and intellectual property law firm;
- Previously a partner of New York-based Frankfurt Kurnit, Klein & Selz.
The American Lawyer dubbed him “the Maharaja of Media”. His clients have included:
- Sony Pictures;
- HBO;
- 20th Century Fox;
- Media Rights Capital;
- Sacha Baron Cohen;
- Mohamed Al Fayed;
- Channel Four Television;
- ITV;
- Philip Glass;
- Michael Moore;
- MTV Networks;
- Universal Records;
- Simon & Schuster, Def Jam Records;
- Spike Lee;
- Penguin Books;
- Warner Books;
- Graham Norton;
- Sean “P Diddy” Combs;
- Spin and Vibe magazines;
- and the Estates of Elvis Presley, John Cheever and Andy Warhol.
Russell has handled trials and/or appeals in dozens of federal and state courts across the United States, including cases in New York, California, Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi and Ohio. He has been quoted countless times in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and The Times of India.