The Most Powerful Women in International Television
As THR unveils its annual list of the most powerful women in international television, the global industry finds itself at a crossroads. It’s been a rough year. Layoffs at nearly every studio and major production company have highlighted the overall contraction in the market and signal a broad shift in priorities away from growth at all costs to a laser focus on the bottom line. Against this backdrop, the executives on this list have had to find ways to do more with less, to restructure their business operations, question long-established practices, and create new ways forward — all without abandoning the core principles of equity and inclusion that got them this far.
As the global entertainment industry continues to evolve, the leadership of these powerful women, and their vision, will be crucial in shaping its future. Jane Turton, CEO of production juggernaut All3Media, has this advice for young women entering the business: “Be yourself. Do not simply copy, mimic or try to emulate others. Don’t be scared to voice your opinions and swim against the tide. It won’t always work — but when it does, it’s amazing.”
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Profiles written by Patrick Brzeski, Kevin Cassidy, Scott Roxborough and Etan Vlessing.
Mo Abudu
CEO, EbonyLife Media (Nigeria)
Abudu likes to joke that when she decided, in her mid-40s, to change careers from being an executive at oil giant ExxonMobil to launching her own media empire, “most people thought it was a midlife crisis.” Nearly two decades later, the oft-styled “Queen of African media” has proved the doubters wrong. Now 60, Abudu’s influence continues to grow. Her conglomerate EbonyLife has teamed with African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) to finance and produce African content for international distribution. Looking to the future, Abudu says she hopes people will soon see the end of what she calls “tokenism of Black content” internationally, where shows with Black characters and storylines “only get one chance, and then that’s it for the next five years. This same logic never applies to white shows.”
Zeinab Abu Alsamh
GM, MBC Studios (Saudi Arabia)
Before joining Saudi Arabia’s MBC Group in 2021, Abu Alsamh served as chief commercial officer of the Saudi Broadcasting Authority, where she was responsible for the programming strategies of its entire broadcast portfolio. At MBC Studios, the in-house premium content production arm of MBC Group, she oversees production and development of new projects while also serving as CEO of MBC Academy, which discovers and nurtures emerging talent. “Internally, we spent last year restructuring to better serve the market and empower those with the right expertise,” she says, adding that in the past year the Academy’s biggest achievement “was having 23,000 beneficiaries graduate from our training programs. We are incredibly proud of them.”
Maria Pia Ammirati
Director, Rai Fiction (Italy)
Since taking over as director of Rai Fiction, the drama section of Italy’s public broadcaster, in 2020, Ammirati has helped Rai get its fiction groove back. Drawing on her creative expertise as a TV writer, Ammirati has broken new ground with series like the award-winning My Brilliant Friend (available to stream in the U.S. on Max), the teen drama phenom The Sea Beyond and The Count of Monte Cristo, an English-language take on the Alexandre Dumas revenge classic. Well-capitalized global streamers entering the Italian market have forced everyone to raise their game, says Ammirati, but “on the downside, we have experienced a growth in costs. … It is a difficult road, but the results have shown that we can make a virtue out of necessity.”
Javiera Balmaceda
Head of originals Latin America, Canada and Australia, Amazon Studios (Latin America)
Since joining Prime Video in 2017, Balmaceda has become a driving force behind location adaptations of cross-border hits like the stand-up comedy competition series LOL: Last One Laughing, which has received more than 20 local-language adaptations and become Prime Video’s most successful franchise. “This year’s biggest challenge, and what will continue to be one, is the misconception that we are making less content or greenlighting fewer projects,” she says. “For us, quality is paramount over quantity, but that said, we haven’t slowed down in any of my territories.”
Rola Bauer
Head of Pan-English scripted SVOD TV, development and series, Amazon (Germany)
A veteran producer of international co-productions and high-end drama series — see the Emmy-nominated The Pillars of the Earth, with Matthew Macfadyen and Eddie Redmayne, or the pan-European crime series Crossing Lines, with the late, great Donald Sutherland — Bauer has been building up Amazon’s international English-language originals since 2022 with a slate ranging from the hit Brit fantasy comedy Good Omens to the upcoming mystery thriller Lazarus, about a forensic pathologist who becomes entangled in a series of cold-case murders. When it comes to social progress within the business, Bauer notes that old-school ideas remain an obstacle. “People mistake kindness, compassion and tolerance for weakness, which is boring, and so sadly we waste time having to educate the bullies,” she says.
Renata Brand?o
CEO, Conspira??o Filmes (Brazil)
Since taking over in 2016 as CEO of the Brazilian production giant — Conspira??o Filmes has earned 10 International Emmy noms for its programming, more than any company in Latin America — Brand?o has expanded the business globally. “A key milestone is our upcoming Spanish-speaking remake of [the hit Brazilian soap] Under Pressure, and we’re also developing a soap series to be shot abroad,” she says. “Our goal is to bring Conspira??o’s fully integrated studio structure from Brazil to the rest of LatAm, not only producing locally but also creating space for co-productions [and] blending Latin American storytelling.” On the film side, Conspira??o co-produced Walter Salles’ awards contender I’m Still Here, Brazil’s entry for international feature for the 2025 Oscars.
Carol Choi
Managing director Japan, exec vp APAC int’l market/local original productions, Disney (Japan)
Disney veteran Choi oversees the company’s business in Japan, one of its largest global markets, including all corporate functions, its studio, and direct-to-consumer businesses. Her cross-regional role as APAC head of marketing and original content strategy means she also juggles responsibility for designing Disney’s marketing campaigns across Asian markets and building the company’s APAC content slate for its streaming services. Says Choi: “I’m really excited about our upcoming Korean originals, including Light Shop, Hyper Knife and Tempest, as well as our Japanese original Gannibal 2, as we scale our creative ambition with a curated collection of originals. Shogun’s historic Emmy wins underscore how authentic storytelling can resonate with global audiences, and the critical role that Asian talent like Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada can play in creating an ‘East meets West dream project.’ ”
Jane Featherstone
Co-founder/chief creative officer, Sister (U.K.)
A true producer powerhouse, Featherstone, one of the co-founders (together with Stacey Snider and Elisabeth Murdoch) of bespoke Brit outfit Sister, has had a productive 2024. “By [year’s] end, we’ll have delivered five hugely diverse shows,” she notes, pointing to Eric, Kaos and Black Doves for Netflix — the first is a crime thriller starring Benedict Cumberbatch, the second a modern-day retelling of Greek mythology featuring Jeff Goldblum, and the third a thriller with Keira Knightley, Andrew Koji and Ben Whishaw — as well as the ITV/Britbox mystery series Passenger and The Split: Barcelona, a two-part special revisiting the characters of Abi Morgan’s acclaimed legal drama, which wrapped its third season in 2022. Says Featherstone: “This business is all about the people, and the relationships we’ve built with the creative community — writers, actors and crews — and with our business partners have helped us flourish this year.”
Verónica Fernández
Director content originals series and films, Spain & Portugal, Netflix (Spain)
Fernández’s rise at Netflix has paralleled the growth in Iberian content on the platform. “It’s been exciting to see in Netflix’s latest engagement report that three out of the 10 most watched seasons in non-English TV series came from Spain,” she says of Money Heist prequel Berlin as well as The Asunta Case and Raising Voices. Netflix’s studio hub in Tres Cantos, outside Madrid, has become one of the most active backlots in Europe and among Fernández’s key challenges is finding, or training, the talent to meet the demands of an ever-growing production slate. “We’re always looking at how we can help upskill existing talent within the industry,” she says. “We want to see the industry thrive, and to do that we need a diversity of talent.”
Laura Fernández Espeso
CEO, The Mediapro Studio (Spain)
Fernández Espeso, who took over as CEO of The Mediapro Studio (TMS) in 2020, has taken the Iberian powerhouse global. The group now has 52 offices across 31 countries and this summer launched operations throughout the U.S. and Canada. “We’ve opened offices in L.A. after operating in Miami and New York over the last few years,” she says. “TMS U.S. & Canada fulfills our goal to create, produce and distribute content in English, intended for audiences all over the world.”
Cécile Frot-Coutaz
CEO, Sky Studios /chief content officer, Sky (U.K.)
Since taking over the scripted production arm of Comcast’s European giant Sky in 2021, the French-born exec has gone from strength to strength, adding to the group’s slate of high-end drama series (Emmy-nominated The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Joe Wright’s hotly anticipated M. Son of the Century, a limited series on Benito Mussolini) with a growing features business that includes original productions (the period biopic Lee, starring Kate Winslet) and an expanding backlot operation at Sky’s state-of-the-art production facility Sky Studios Elstree, just north of London.
Helen Gregory
Joint Managing Director, See-Saw Films (U.K.)
See-Saw Films already was known as a purveyor of high-end cinema (The King’s Speech, The Power of the Dog) when Gregory arrived in 2021 to help boost its nascent TV division. Series including Apple TV+’s Slow Horses and Netflix’s Heartstopper hit the sweet spot between critical and popular acclaim. It’s a target Gregory is aiming for with Sweetpea, a dark comedy featuring Yellowjackets and Fallout star Ella Purnell. Young women entering the still very male-dominated TV industry, says Gregory, should “speak up for themselves and their achievements without apologizing” and understand that “supporting each other is a strength, not a weakness.”
Jay Hunt (Industry Leader)
Creative director of worldwide video, Europe, Apple (U.K.)
For one of the most influential, respected and, yes, powerful executives in international TV, Jay Hunt keeps a remarkably low profile, rarely giving interviews and keeping public appearances to a minimum. When she does, she makes them count. Few attendees to the 2016 Edinburgh Television Festival will forget her onstage evisceration of Vice Media’s Shane Smith. Mostly, though, Hunt lets her achievements speak for themselves. The Australia-born, Brit-educated exec can boast of being the only person to have run three terrestrial broadcasters in the U.K. — as director of programs at Channel 5 from 2007 to 2008, controller of flagship public channel BBC One from 2008 to 2010 and chief creative officer at Channel 4 from 2011 to 2017. At the Beeb, her original drama commissions like Sherlock and Luther were instrumental in updating the international image of the staid public broadcaster and contributed to a global boom in demand for made-in-the U.K. prestige TV content. But it was at Channel 4 that Hunt went from top exec to industry superstar, overseeing a slate that included critically acclaimed drama and comedy series — Humans, Derry Girls — massively successful nonfiction and reality formats, from Gogglebox to SAS: Who Dares Wins, and sports programming like Formula One and the BAFTA Award-winning coverage of the 2012 London Paralympic Games. Most famously — or infamously, depending on your loyalties — she successfully brought ratings phenomenon The Great British Bake Off to commercial TV after seven seasons on the BBC. Channel 4 just re-upped the sugarcoated competition show for a 16th season.
Since taking over as creative director for Apple in Europe in 2017, Hunt has continued to let her work do the talking for her, with Emmy and BAFTA-winning series like the dark family comedy Bad Sisters with Sharon Horgan; the spy thriller Slow Horses with Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas; the Idris Elba actioner Hijack; and The Buccaneers, a Bridgerton-esque take on Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel about fun-loving American debutantes who explode onto the tightly corseted London social scene of the 1870s, featuring Kristine Froseth, Alisha Boe and Christina Hendricks.
Highlights of her continental slate include the new French drama Carême, starring Benjamin Voisin as Antonin Carême, who rose from humble beginnings to become the world’s first celebrity chef in Napoleon’s Europe; the German mystery comedy Where’s Wanda? from Biohackers director Christian Ditter, about a family searching for their missing daughter who discover none of their neighbors are who they pretend to be; and La Maison, a stylish family drama featuring Matrix star Lambert Wilson as the patriarch of an iconic French fashion house.
As budget-tightening has led much of the global entertainment industry to pivot toward the safe and conventional, Hunt stands out for continuing to focus on quality over quantity. Good news, then, for the British Film Institute, which in February named Hunt chair of the BFI for a four-year term, a role she’ll add to her duties at Apple. — Scott Roxborough
Emiko Iijima
VP anime production, Crunchyroll (Japan)
Iijima began her career as a secretary at Tokyo anime studio Pierrot, creator of the classic anime series Naruto, Bleach and Tokyo Ghoul. “At that time in Japan, it was said = women would not be recognized unless they worked two or three times as hard as men,” she recalls. Such trailblazers “won the trust of the company and opened the door to employment for many more women .” Iijima undoubtedly was such a figure. Five years ago, she joined Sony’s anime specialty streamer Crunchyroll as its head of production, a role that has allowed her to play a leading part in the genre’s ongoing global boom. Over the past year, Iijima executive produced a string of internationally popular anime series, including Solo Leveling, Classroom of the Elite and Re: Monster. “Now is an amazing time to be an anime fan, and I am in service to those fans,” she says.
Minyoung Kim
VP content for Asia Pacific (ex-India), Netflix (South Korea/Japan/Taiwan/Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand)
Kim is credited as the architect of Netflix’s wildly successful Korean content strategy — she greenlit Squid Game, after all — and her current career challenge is to repeat that success in other growing markets as Netflix’s head of content operations in all territories of the Asia-Pacific, aside from India. “Growing up in Korea, I know our culture and stories inside out. Creating content in countries where I don’t have that level of familiarity makes me uncomfortably excited — I need to trust the instincts and the expertise of my local team,” she says of her broad remit.
Miky Lee
Vice chair, CJ Group (South Korea)
Although an Oscar winner for Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite in 2019, Lee is more than just an entertainment executive — she is a bona fide tycoon. Thirty years ago, she and her brother Jay Lee, heirs to South Korea’s CJ Group conglomerate, which originally specialized in food products, embarked on an ambitious diversification strategy by making a sizable equity investment in Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen’s startup studio, DreamWorks SKG. The siblings leveraged the Hollywood nous they attained to build CJ ENM into a driving force behind the Korean cultural wave. Today, CJ ENM controls Korea’s biggest film and TV studios, its largest cinema chain and growing streaming operations. Having conquered the home market, Lee’s ambitions today are increasingly global, with CJ ENM snapping up Endeavor Content two years ago in a multi-hundred-million-dollar deal and going head-to-head against Netflix with growing investments in regional streaming platform TVing.
Marie Leguizamo
Managing director, Banijay Mexico & U.S. Hispanic (Latin America)
Since its launch in 2022, Banijay Mexico & U.S. Hispanic is responsible for creating a production hub in Mexico City. The studio was instrumental in bringing the reality dating format Temptation Island to Latin America and establishing a production hub for local versions in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. One industry trend Leguizamo says she’d like to see the end of is the “always on” culture that she says glorifies being perpetually busy: “Instead of the hustle, I’d love to see a shift toward valuing quality over quantity, where we prioritize meaningful work and well-being. Let’s bring back the joy of working smarter, not just harder!”
Anna Marsh
CEO, StudioCanal; Deputy CEO, Canal+ Group (France)
As head of Europe’s largest indie studio, Marsh can boast of a feature slate that includes family franchises á la Paddington, with the third feature starring the marmalade-loving bear, Paddington in Peru, hitting U.K. cinemas in November and U.S. theaters early next year. On the TV side, StudioCanal is a master of the big-budget European drama, like Thomas Vinterberg’s dystopian epic Families Like Ours or Paris Has Fallen, a French-focused, small-screen spinoff of the Gerard Butler action franchise.
Carolyn McCall
CEO, ITV (U.K.)
The dual wallop of the drop in television advertising and last year’s actors and directors strikes hit ITV hard. The British commercial TV giant, which McCall has run since 2018, is still struggling to transition to the digital age. First-half figures this year showed a slight drop in total revenue but some notable improvements, including solid growth at its streaming business ITVX, with monthly active users up 17 percent and a 12 percent growth in digital revenue. Going forward, McCall is pushing for tech-driven efficiencies, including an embrace of generative AI as a tool to help — but never replace — creatives.
Anne Mensah
VP U.K. content, Netflix (U.K.)
Mensah’s teams crushed it in 2024 with Richard Gadd’s multi-Emmy-winning hit Baby Reindeer and global subscriber hits including the Harlan Coben series adaptation Fool Me Once.
While it’s no secret Netflix has shifted its focus from subscriber growth to bottom-line profits, Mensah sees no reason to change course, telling the Creative Cities Convention in April that commissioning a broad and diverse range of shows that “authentically reflect” the U.K. remains her goal.
Charlotte Moore
Chief content officer, BBC (U.K.)
Moore has run content at Britain’s broadcaster of record since 2020, and while this year hasn’t been easy — former star presenter Huw Edwards resigned from the BBC in April after being charged with making indecent images of children, and the celebrity dance show Strictly Come Dancing was hit with complaints about on-set bullying — Moore can point to plenty of critical and commercial successes, like the reboot of the gloriously silly ’90s action game show Gladiators or the return of the Liverpool cop saga The Responder, with Martin Freeman and Adelayo Adedayo. When it comes to the transition from broadcast to streaming, the Beeb is best in class. Says Moore, “I’m really proud of our BBC iPlayer success story; it’s now the fastest-growing VOD platform in the U.K.”
Cathy Payne
CEO, Banijay Rights (U.K.)
Navigating a contracting market dominated by “streamer correction and general industry consolidation” has been a challenge in the past year, says Payne. “It would be good to see when big industry groups [Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery] will settle and future programming strategy become clearer.” The child of a working-class family, Payne always has been focused on improving representation across socioeconomic backgrounds, often a blind spot within the entertainment industry. “I believe grassroot programs that grow change can shift long-term attitudes,” she says. “Talent can come from anywhere.”
Gabriela Rodríguez
Head of company, Esperanto Filmoj (U.K.)
Rising from Alfonso Cuarón’s personal assistant on Children of Men to the Oscar-nominated producer of Roma, Rodríguez has become a powerhouse in international film and TV. She oversaw the production of the high-end series Disclaimer, starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline and Sacha Baron Cohen, for Apple TV+, helping bring Cuarón’s notorious perfectionism — Rodríguez still remembers having to source 16 versions of dog feces for Roma — to the small screen.
Julie Roy
CEO, Telefilm Canada (Canada)
Roy took up the leadership of Telefilm Canada, Canada’s top film financier, in March 2023. Her role includes funding and promoting Canadian independent content and encouraging international co-productions with global partners to share project costs and risk. A big part of that push is getting homegrown producers to create more multinational content and supporting Canadian creators looking to expand their careers internationally.
Monika Shergill
VP content, Netflix India (India)
Shergill has some powerful data to argue for her impact at Netflix. An Indian title has held a spot on the streamer’s global top 10 list for non-English content every week in 2024. Standout original hits from her recent slate have included Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, which became Netflix’s biggest Indian drama series to date; the cult film Amar Singh Chamkila; and the comedy talk show The Great Indian Kapil Sharma Show. “Streaming, in my opinion, has opened doors for more women creators thanks to the growing number of women in decision-making roles,” Shergill says. “At Netflix, our India content team has many women executives, and we believe that when we embrace diverse viewpoints and foster inclusion, we do a better job of entertaining the world.”
Prerna Singh
CEO, Bhansali Productions (India)
After executive stints at such Indian media giants as Eros International, Abundantia Entertainment and Reliance Entertainment, Singh joined Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bhansali Productions in 2019, heading operations at the Bollywood powerhouse. Singh has expanded the company’s business to the small screen with the epic series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, a Netflix original about the lives of tawaifs — the courtesan singer-dancer-poets who catered to Indian nobility — during the Indian independence movement against the British Raj. The seriesalready has been renewed for a second season. Singh sees the rise of streaming platforms in India as an opportunity to better reflect the country’s “rich cultural landscape” in its stories. “By addressing social issues and showcasing regional cultures, we can create content that resonates with people from all walks of life. The rise of streaming platforms gives us an incredible opportunity to bring these stories to the forefront, fostering a deeper understanding of the unique realities that shape our nation.”
Julia Stuart
Director, Sky Original Film (U.K.)
Stuart is a Sky stalwart, having worked at the Comcast-owned Sky in the U.K. for nearly two decades, taking over as director of original film production at the pay TV giant in 2021. Under her leadership, Sky has pushed into theatrical distribution with the likes of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, the Jason Statham starrer The Beekeeper and the awards contender Lee. Keeping a slate together amid the “perfect storm” of industrywide strikes and funding cutbacks has been a challenge, Stuart admits, and addressing “widespread inequality throughout the industry” remains a struggle. “One area I think is still overlooked is representation of people from different regions of the U.K. and different class backgrounds, which is so tied to opportunities, routes into the industry and proper remuneration for work,” she says.
YoungSun Soh
SVP and Managing Director, A+E Networks Korea
YoungSun Soh, General Manager of A+E Networks Korea, has been instrumental in expanding A+E’s footprint in the region since joining in 2017. Soh has overseen the growth of A+E brands, advertising sales, and content investment strategies, as well as the network’s digital expansion. Under her leadership, A+E Korea has become a powerhouse, producing unscripted hits like Nego King, a web-based variety series whose content has racked up more than 3.3 billion views across all platforms; and scripted series like Backstreet Rookie Dramaworld, and Woori the Virgin. Previously, Soh held key roles at Twitter Korea and BBC Worldwide Channels Asia.
Karen Thorne-Stone
President/CEO, Ontario Creates (Canada)
As president and CEO of Ontario Creates, an agency that invests in and promotes growth across various media sectors in the Canadian province of Ontario, Thorne-Stone’s purview encompasses film and TV production, books, music and digital media. Her leadership at Ontario Creates has been marked by efforts to modernize and streamline funding tools, but she’s also passionate about improving equality and diversity within the industry. “Funders and incentives must require diversity in content and the teams that make it; not just at the entry level, but by supporting career progression. Traditional models of seniority in hiring must be replaced by merit- and equality-based criteria,” she notes.
Jane Tranter
Co-founder/CEO, Bad Wolf (U.K.)
After a stint in the U.S. at BBC Worldwide, Tranter returned home and in 2015 co-founded L.A.- and Brit-based Bad Wolf, with the vision of creating high-end drama out of the U.K. that can play worldwide. She’s followed up hits like The Night Of and His Dark Materials with the BBC’s Dope Girls and the HBO sleeper Industry, both of which showcase her commitment to fostering new talent. But she says a lot still needs to be done to improve opportunities for marginalized communities. “People like myself who have worked in the industry for many years are responsible for the lack of equality present today, as we didn’t address this issue earlier,” she says. “Now, we all have to make the time to make the change happen.”
Jane Turton
CEO, All3Media (U.K.)
The $1.45 billion sale of production powerhouse All3Media to Jeff Zucker and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird IMI, which closed in May, by far was the biggest professional challenge Turton faced this year. Her number-crunching background has proved an invaluable asset for All3Media, not least in the company’s push for more equity and diversity among its ranks. The best argument for DEI, she notes, is “demonstrating that a diverse workforce delivers the best outcomes across all fronts — commercial, cultural, creative [and] financial.”
Yang Xiaopei
Founder/CEO, Xixi Pictures (China)
Yang began her career climbing the ladder at the state-backed entertainment behemoth Shanghai Media Group. “Since joining the industry in 2006, I have worked my way up from the bottom and witnessed the rapid development of China’s TV series market,” she explains. Over the past year, Xixi Pictures released a string of local hits, including the popular period drama The Youth Memories, which was nominated for best TV series at the 34th Feitian Awards, China’s version of the Emmys. To foster a continual spirit of inclusion at her company, Yang has instituted weekly idea-sharing sessions that her entire staff is invited to attend. “We call this the ‘Xi Meeting,’ ” she says. “Everyone can speak their mind freely, whether it is about content or the company’s systems. This enables us to collect valuable opinions from all perspectives.”
This story appeared in the Oct. 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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