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Canon Club: Issue No. 12
Welcome to the twelfth issue of DEG’s Canon Club Newsletter!
| | RECENT EVENTS: CANON CLUB SPRING LEADERSHIP SALON & MENTORING MIXER AND DEG'S ENTECH FEST | | BURBANK, Calif. | It was standing room only at Iyuno’s Burbank office for DEG’s Canon Club Leadership Salon in May, as executives from across the industry crowded in to hear Board Director Katherine Pond, of Vizio, talk with Iyuno’s Nicky McBride (below, left) about her approach to leadership. Pond’s shared key tenets of her leadership style including authenticity, mentorship, and empowerment of team members. Some of her favorite resources on leadership: Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead and this Master Class on the art of negotiation with former FBI agent Chris Voss. The late afternoon gathering kicked off with an intro by Canon Club Co-Chair Meri Hassouni, of Giant Worldwide, and ended with a networking reception where Pond continued to chat freely (below, right). Top photo (l. to r.): Meri Hassouni, Nicky McBride, Katherine Pond. | | DEG's EnTech Fest and Summer Symposium took place in early June, with 800 people signed up for a day packed with insights, learning and camaraderie. The day's programming was particularly well-received, with women representing various sectors of entertainment technology taking the stage to deliver memorable keynotes, panels and presentations. | | DEG president and CEO Amy Jo Smith introduced the day's programming. | | Google took the stage to showcase its latest technology and filmmaking ventures, with company members, including Katherine Erdman, showing sneak previews of film clips and trailers. | | Feature panel Extracting Value From Legacy Content with AI brought together representatives from both content holders, including Amazon Studios' Ellen Goodridge (l.) and technology companies, including Twelve Labs' Soyoung Lee (r.), to address the various challenges and solutions for licensing content libraries for AI training. | | Terri Davies of Trusted Partner Network gave an informative presentation on the importance of strengthening content security through industry partnerships. | | During feature panel Practical AI for Speed and Savings in Localization, experts such as The Sherlock Company's Kelly Summers (l.) and Spherex's Teresa Phillips (r.) weighed in on how various AI practices can increase speed and efficiency in global content distribution. | | In a keynote conversation, Netflix accessibility director Heather Dowdy spoke on the opportunity to cater to a wider audience by making digital entertainment accessible beyond basic support. | | One of the day's best received programs was fireside chat between entertainment industry veterans, including filmmaker Barbara Ford Grant (l.) and experience designer Amy Jupiter (r.), on embracing a future ripe with storytelling technology without compromising the community aspect of creativity. | | CREE8's Lisa Watts spoke on feature panel Providing a Richer Viewer Experience with Advanced Storytelling Technologies. Watts and other panelists illustrated how new innovations and tech can improve the home viewing experience. | | Candou Ventures/Markit.Place's Susan Akbarpour introduced attendees to shoppable video's largely untapped potential during feature panel Bringing Quality Shopping Experiences to Screens. | | Luisa Muneratti of Bango gave an insights presentation on the ways that US consumers navigate the evolving subscription landscape. | | Congratulations to women from member companies who have recently joined new companies or been promoted to prominent positions. | | |
Amazon/MGM Studios
Nicole Clemens
Vice President and Head of International Original
Formerly at Paramount
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AMC Networks
Olivia Depuis
EVP, Publicity
Formerly SVP, Publicity
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Disney+
Angela Jain
Head of Content,
Disney+ EMEA
Formerly at ITV
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Hallmark Media
Jessica Tasler Noble
Chief Culture Officer
Formerly at Hallmark Product & Retail
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Lionsgate
Erin Westerman
Head of Studio Production
Formerly President, Production and Development
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Did a female executive recently join or receive a promotion at your company, or were they honored for any industry awards?
Email cayla@degonline.org to recognize them in our next newsletter!
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"You have more behind you than in front of you, so if you’re going to make a big change, what are you waiting for?"
-Actress and activist Cynthia Nixon, on embracing new experiences and opportunities in midlife and beyond.
Read more
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Academy Board of Governors Adds Haifaa al-Mansour, Effie T. Brown, Annie Chang
TheWrap
Al-Mansour (pictured, l.) is a Saudi Arabian director whose films “Wadjda” and “The Perfect Candidate” represented Saudi Arabia in the Oscars Best International Feature Film category; the first of those was the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia and the first made by a female Saudi director. Brown (pictured, c.) is a producer whose work includes “Real Woman Have Curves,” “Rocket Science” and “Dear White People.” Chang (pictured, r.) is the vice president of creative technologies at Universal and serves as chair of the Academy’s Science and Technology council. Read more
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Annie Chang is also DEG's Hall of Fame EnTech Award honoree for 2024. Nominations for this year's EnTech Awards are open from now until July 25, and forms can be found here.
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Women Directors Are Still Underrepresented on Big Budget Streaming Films — Study
IndieWire
The 2025 report, which examined the top 100 English-language film releases on major streaming platforms (Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Max, Netflix, Paramount+, and Peacock) in 2024, found that, while films with more racially diverse casts performed better on streaming platforms, female filmmakers are still underrepresented when it comes to big budget features. “We’re glad to see gains for diversity with streaming films, but the gap between movie budgets for streaming and theatrical releases gets wider and wider,” Michael Tran, a sociologist and co-author of the report, said in an official statement. Read more
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Dametra Johnson-Marletti, Longtime Microsoft Executive, Exiting Tech Firm
Media Play News
Dametra Johnson-Marletti, the high-profile corporate VP for digital gaming sales within the Microsoft Consumer Sales Organization, is leaving the technology giant after a 24-year career in which she received myriad honors and awards, including several appearances as a “Captain” in Media Play News‘ annual Women in Home Entertainment salute and a 2019 induction into the Variety Hall of Fame. “It’s been a great run at Microsoft,” she said. “My journey here has exceeded my grandest ambitions, and I could not feel more proud or privileged to have had this experience. It’s now time for me to move on to the next chapter.” Read more
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Inspiring Future Innovators: Iyuno Celebrates Girls' Day in Berlin
Iyuno’s Berlin EUREF studio opened its doors to girls aged 10+ for this year’s Girls’ Day, an annual event in Germany that aims to expose young students to technical careers in which women are traditionally underrepresented. This year, Iyuno invited nine students to step into roles as editors, recording engineers, and mixing engineers – giving them a behind-the-scenes look at both the fun and technical expertise involved in post-production work. The students were guided through each step of the process including media services, time coding, recording sessions, editing, and final mixing. Read more
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The Anti-DEI Crusade Hasn’t Stopped Women Leaders
Bloomberg ($)
Progress for female executives has always been so slow and plodding that every milestone, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant, gets celebrated. But recently, sounding the alarm for women in corporate America has supplanted cheering the wins. And no wonder — a growing list of data points signal that the right’s attack on DEI is chipping away at women’s progress toward the boardroom and corner office. Read more
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Being Passionate About Your Job Works … If You’re a Man
UCLA Anderson Review
One of the key attributes corporate America looks for to winnow its high-potential pool is an employee’s passion for the work. Yet assessing passion is an inherently subjective process, which exposes it to potential misapplication. In a paper published in Organization Science, UCLA Anderson’s Joyce C. He, Harvard’s Jon M. Jachimowicz and Imperial College London’s Celia Moore document a gender bias in how management interprets passion. Men who express passion about their job are more likely to be designated as high potential, while their female cohorts don’t get the same benefit for the same emotive display. Read more
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Addressing AI’s Impact on the Gender Gap
Bloomberg ($)
Artificial intelligence data sets need to better represent women, says Shubhi Rao, Founder and CEO of Uplevyl, a platform designed to accelerate women in the workplace. Rao speaks with Caroline Hyde on “Bloomberg Tech.” Watch the video
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Faith Kipyegon Runs 4:06 Mile at Breaking 4, Faster Than World Record
NBC Sports
Faith Kipyegon ran a mile in 4 minutes, 6.42 seconds — more than a second faster than her world record — at “Breaking4,” a special event billed as Kipyegon’s attempt to become the first woman to run a mile in under four minutes. “Exhausted,” Kipyegon said on the broadcast. “I’m tired, but I feel good I’ve tried. That is why I’m coming here, try to be the first woman to run under four minutes. But I’ve proven that it’s possible. It’s only a matter of time, but I think it will come to our way. If it’s not me, it will be somebody else.” Read more
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The Design Genius Who Gave American Women Pockets
New York Times ($)
When I read Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson’s exceptional biography, “Claire McCardell,” my angst turned into … indignation. The problem isn’t my body. Or the false promises of online commerce. It’s a bazillion-dollar global fashion industry that ignores the midcentury mastermind of American sportswear, among our most significant cultural exports. Many of McCardell’s contributions to women’s ready-to-wear clothing remain in circulation — including ballet flats, leggings, hoodies and spaghetti straps. But vanishingly few of the designers who’ve come after embody her driving ethos: Women’s clothes can be practical, comfortable, stylish and affordable. And have pockets. Read more
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