The Irish Film Board has appointed Jonathan Loughran to run the board's first US office, which will be based in Los Angeles.
The creation of the board's first overseas office was announced by Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, John O'Donoghue, at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
The office will be named the Irish Film Commission US and its job will be to promote the country to the US audiovisual industry, with the aim of attracting an increased range of US feature film and television drama to locate in Ireland.
Mr Loughran has worked in Los Angeles as marketing executive with Enterprise Ireland. In that post he helped new-media Irish companies develop relationships with major entertainment industry companies such as Disney, Warner Bros, Sony and MTV.
During his time in Los Angeles he brought many prominent US executives to Ireland to meet Irish companies.
The film board's Irish-based film commissioner, Naoise Barry, welcomed the appointment.
"Our new office in the heart of Hollywood will enable us to better compete for mobile US film and television production, creating new business opportunities for the Irish film industry," he said.
The most recent US productions to be filmed in Ireland were the 10-part TV series The Tudors, featuring Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and PS I Love You, based on Cecilia Ahern's novel and starring two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank, which is now shooting in Dublin.
