Thomas Edison once summed up the topic of innovation like this: “There’s a way to do it better — find it.” So what are the next lightbulbs to illuminate Hollywood’s marquee? The second annual Variety Digital Innovators list recognizes 12 leaders pushing the boundaries at the intersection of technology and entertainment. These execs are harnessing the power of new formats, platforms and strategies to tap into content-hungry audiences — in 2020 and beyond.
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Malik Ducard
Image Credit: Courtesy of Malik Ducard Global Head of Learning, Social Impact, Family, Film & TV, YouTube
At the world’s biggest video platform, Ducard leads the team bringing to YouTube new educational and learning content — core pillars of the company’s revamped originals strategy — as well as partnering with producers and creators of family, film and TV content. Before joining YouTube in 2011, he oversaw Paramount Pictures’ digital distribution in the Americas and prior to that led Lionsgate’s home entertainment acquisitions and MGM Home Entertainment’s acquisitions and business development division. The Bronx native, inspired by his experiences as a dad of three, also is the author of “Henry’s Big Win,” winner of the 2015 Jessie Redmon Fauset Award for best children’s book.
Trend to Watch: “In the next decade, creators will continue to turn storytelling upside down, taking the paintbrush and canvas of new technologies like VR to show the fullness of the human condition. In the way the advent of the telescope showed us far-out galaxies and the microscope revealed tiny hidden worlds, I believe this new age of storytelling and technology will unveil the humanity all around us.”
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Amy Emmerich
Image Credit: Courtesy of Amy Emmerich Global President and Chief Content Officer, Refinery29
The Emmy-winning producer worked with networks including MTV, HBO and Travel Channel before joining Refinery29, a pioneering media and entertainment company for women, in 2015. Now, following R29’s acquisition by Vice Media Group, Emmerich has a global purview. Over her more than 20-year career, she’s been a champion for underrepresented voices, including spearheading Refinery29’s Shatterbox short-film series for women filmmakers, now in its third season.
Trend to Watch: “We know that audiences are demanding more realistic and more real-life opportunities to connect with each other, the brands they trust and platforms they live their lives on. This younger generation will be holding businesses, and one another, accountable for the decisions we make and the purpose our brands hold in the world. The future of digital media willdepend on how brands merchandize and mobilize this audience, which should always sit at the center of these moments.”
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Vicki Dobbs Beck
Image Credit: Courtesy of Vicki Dobbs Beck Executive in Charge, ILMxLab, Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm’s immersive entertainment studio ILMxLab has been exploring the future of media since 2015 — and Dobbs Beck has ensured the work isn’t confined to proofs of concept. Under her leadership, ILMxLab has become a pioneering producer of virtual reality, including location-based experiences like “Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire” and “Avengers: Damage Control,” as well as Oculus Quest launch title “Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series.” Before starting ILMxLab, Dobbs Beck spent two decades at Industrial Light & Magic, turning the VFX studio into a global company that has been key to Lucasfilm’s success. In 2019, the Advanced Imaging Society recognized her with a Distinguished Leadership Award for being a significant entertainment industry growth catalyst.
Trend to Watch: “I am incredibly passionate about the idea of transitioning from storytelling to story-living through immersive media. I am, therefore, carefully watching the evolution of 5G as well as the next generation of VR and AR hardware devices in 2020 and beyond.”
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Glenn Gainor
Image Credit: Courtesy of Glenn Gainor Sony Innovation Studios President, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures opened its Innovation Studios facility on its Culver City, Calif., lot in 2018. Since then, Gainor and his team have been working to bring digital sets and other virtual production tools to Sony productions and those of industry partners while looking to pioneer technologies for other Sony businesses including music and gaming. Gainor also is head of physical production for Sony Pictures’ Screen Gems, where he has championed the use of consumer-grade digital cameras as well as sustainable set-building practices. He’s served as an executive producer and unit production manager on Screen Gems films including hit comedy “The Wedding Ringer.”
Trend to Watch: “I believe that this coming year, we will see story-tellers embrace more digital sets that will utilize real-time visual effects. This will offer storytellers the ability to feel as if they’re on location. By collapsing geography, we’ll empower storytellers like never before.”
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Laura Evans
Image Credit: Courtesy of Laura Evans Senior VP of Data, Disney Streaming Services
Big Data is useful only if it generates Big Eureka moments. Disney, in equipping itself for battle in the streaming wars, tapped Evans, a premier data scientist responsible for overseeing analytics and insight capabilities for the media conglom’s direct-to-consumer services, including Disney Plus and ESPN Plus. Previously, she was senior VP of data and insights at The New York Times Co. and also held leadership positions at Scripps Network Interactive, The Washington Post and Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal. Evans holds a Ph.D. in political science, with a concentration in quantitative methods, from George Washington University.
Trend to Watch: “I’ll be closely watching the streaming adoption rates given how many new services are coming to market in the next year. The other area I’m keenly interested in watching is how people are utilizing machine learning beyond personalization to solve business challenges. From topic modeling to understanding story arcs and emotional reactions to creating counterfactuals for better experimentation insights — these all allow us to better the experience for customers in a faster and more nuanced way.”
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Rob Holmes
Image Credit: Courtesy of Rob Holmes VP of Programming, Roku
Roku’s content ambitions came into focus with the launch of the Roku Channel in 2017, and Holmes has been instrumental in developing and growing the ad-supported video service. Over the past two years, the Roku Channel has become an anchor for selling video subscription services directly to consumers. Holmes’ challenge will be to land content deals that allow the company to compete with ad-supported streaming services from giants like ViacomCBS and Amazon and to further expand the channel’s reach beyond Roku’s own hardware. Before joining the device maker, Holmes was a senior VP at Comcast leading its advanced advertising efforts; earlier, he held positions at NBCUniversal, Walmart’s Vudu, MGM and Goldman Sachs.
Trend to Watch: “We’ll start to see consumers cycling across video subscription services to be able to watch the latest big shows without breaking the bank. Ad-supported streaming hours will continue to rise as consumers continue to seek out free content to supplement their subscription-video viewing.”
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Julie McNamara
Image Credit: Courtesy of Julie McNamara Executive VP and Head of Programming, CBS All Access
McNamara has spearheaded content strategy for the Eye’s good fight in subscription VOD. As head of CBS All Access programming since 2016, she’s targeted must-see projects to lure paying customers. Those include “The Good Wife” spinoff “The Good Fight,” “Star Trek: Discovery” and Jordan Peele and Simon Kinberg’s “Twilight Zone” revival. Upcoming series include “Star Trek: Picard” and an adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Stand.” McNamara previously spent 10 years at CBS Television Studios, where she shepherded shows like “The Good Wife,” “Elementary,” “Jane the Virgin” and “Hawaii Five-0.” Prior to that, she led drama development at ABC Network with projects including “Alias,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
Trend to Watch: “After several years of ‘more,’ ‘bigger’ and ‘faster’ content creation, we may have reached an inflection point where companies will take a more strategic and curated approach to what they make and how they make it, to both maximize resources and ensure their consumer a consistent, high-quality experience.”
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Hernan Lopez
Image Credit: Courtesy of Hernan Lopez Founder and CEO, Wondery
Four years ago, Lopez left his longtime post as head of Fox Intl. Channels and launched an entrepreneurial podcasting venture. His vision: Scripted audio entertainment would become a new center of gravity in the entertainment biz. Today, Wondery is among the burgeoning industry’s biggest independent podcast publishers, with hits like “Dr. Death,” “Dirty John,” “American History Tellers,” “Business Wars,” “The Shrink Next Door” and “Gladiator,” several of which have been adapted for TV. A native of Argentina, Lopez moved to Miami in 1997, where he obtained an MBA from the University of Miami; he now lives in Los Angeles.
Trend to Watch: “Storytelling-based podcasts will join premium TV shows in the cultural zeitgeist, while podcasting as a whole evolves from ‘nice-to-have’ to ‘must-have’ for advertisers.”
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Peter Naylor
Image Credit: Courtesy of Peter Naylor Senior VP and Head of Advertising Sales, Hulu
A key member of Hulu’s senior team since 2014, Naylor has worked to flex the muscles of over-the-top video advertising where the medium has unique advantages over legacy TV. He has expanded Hulu’s offerings for brands by introducing interactive ad units and alternate ad solutions, including industry firsts like “pause” and “binge” advertising units. He’s also been a leading force in delivering measurement solutions in the OTT space, achieving complete measurement of viewership in OTT and launching the industry’s first closed-loop attribution tool. Prior to Hulu, Naylor was executive VP of digital media sales for NBCUniversal and has held sales management positions at iVillage, Lycos and Wired Digital.
Trend to Watch: “When people talk about bundling up in 2020, it’s not a comment on the weather. Every streaming company has partnered with a telco; [direct-to-consumer] brands are partnering with brick-and-mortar stores; airlines are partnering with movie studios — new bundles will be the innovation lever everyone pulls.”
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Tom Ryan
Image Credit: Courtesy of Tom Ryan Founder and CEO, Pluto TV
Ryan is steering the new ViacomCBS’ biggest single bet on free-to-watch internet video. He sold startup Pluto TV to Viacom last year for $340 million. The product now offers 200-plus linear TV networks and thousands of on-demand titles — attracting 20 million unique viewers each month. While media rivals are sinking massive bucks into subscription-based premium video, Ryan is betting Pluto TV can carve out a swath of the streaming frontier with the lure of zero-cost access to a smorgasbord of brand-safe, premium-TV programming. He’s eyeing a bigger international rollout in 2020. Earlier in his career, Ryan was CEO of Threadless, a crowdsourced design and e-commerce company; senior VP of digital strategy at EMI Music; and co-founder of early digital music retailer Cductive.
Trend to Watch: “Viewers today are creating their own TV bundles via a handful of streaming apps rather than getting all of their television content from a single provider, and as more high-profile subscription services come to market this trend will accelerate. But since viewers have limited budgets and seek to expand their bundles cost-effectively, they will flock to free, ad-supported streaming television in record numbers, and accordingly so will advertisers, content creators and distributors.”
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John West
Image Credit: Courtesy of John West Founder and CEO, Whistle
Since West started Whistle in 2009, the company has built a roster of sports-centric digital content creators and partners to reach millions of young sports-culture fans — and raised more than $100 million from investors including NBC Sports, Sky Sports, Liberty Global and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo. West beefed up Whistle’s playbook with two acquisitions in 2019: New Form, the digital entertainment studio whose owners included Discovery, ITV, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer; and Vertical Networks, Elisabeth Murdoch’s Snapchat-focused content studio that was backed by Snap. Before Whistle, West was founder and chairman of Silver Oak Solutions, a financial software and advisory firm acquired by outsourcing company CGI in 2005.
Trend to Watch: “As OTT proliferation continues to accelerate, the trend we will be watching most closely is how those changing consumer behaviors are monetized across AVOD, SVOD and TVOD models.”
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Todd Yellin
Image Credit: Aaron Smith VP of Product, Netflix
Netflix is famous for not sharing detailed viewing metrics with content creators. Yellin has been a notable exception: Before starting at Netflix 14 years ago, he wrote and directed indie drama “Brother’s Shadow.” The movie has been streaming on Netflix for some time, allowing him to track exactly how it fares with audiences. In his current role, Yellin is more focused on helping other creators push the envelope, which has included re-architecting Netflix’s apps to stream interactive originals like “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.” Yellin also is known for obsessing over Netflix’s curation and personalization features, and his work will be key to keeping the service and its apps competitive in the increasingly crowded streaming landscape.
Trend to Watch: “I’m always excited about advances that push the boundaries of creativity, opening new possibilities for storytelling. Following the early successes we’ve had with ‘Bandersnatch’ and other interactive titles, for 2020, I’ll be looking closely at how our industry continues to riff on how technology and storytelling come together.”