Ali Brown
President and Partner of Pretty Bird
Ventureland co-founder and president
COMMERCIAL SUCCESS: From Super Bowl domination to Sundance buzz, production lead Ali Brown has racked up wins on every screen. In 2025 alone, her team created campaigns for Nike, Elf, Levi’s, Verizon, Netflix, and Mazda and earned four Super Bowl berths, three of which Brown served as executive producer. In 2025, Pretty Bird was named Production Company of the Year at the Clio Awards and Brown was inducted into the Producers Guild of America.
On tour: Beyond advertising, Brown’s creative studio Ventureland has produced hits such as the Netflix documentaries The Monaco Murders and American Manhunt. She was also on the production team for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour visuals. The range is now determined.
emily henry
Author and Executive Producer
Queen of the Genre: Few authors have captured modern love with the clarity and wit that Emily Henry has. Her novels, such as Beach Read and Happy Place, combine sharp dialogue, emotional depth, and self-conscious humor, and have found a devoted readership around the world. Fans come back for the chemistry, but they also come back for the honesty about ambition, friendship, and heartbreak. In a crowded genre, she delivers stories that feel escapist yet realistic.
Expanding your horizons: Over the past year, she’s continued to dominate the bestseller lists with her latest rivalry-to-lovers, The Great Big Beautiful Life, while expanding her cultural influence by becoming an executive producer on Netflix’s novel People We Meet on Vacation.
Graham Retzik
A24 Head of Creative Marketing & Brand
Play along: At avant-garde film company A24, Graham Letzik has built a marketing campaign that’s as compelling as its filmography. His work transforms movies into cultural moments with a blend of design, drop, and internet-native storytelling that fans love to decipher and share. Retzik creates engaging work by respecting the intelligence of his audience and encouraging participation.
Building Mystery: Over the past year, he has led the development of Marty Supreme, crafting a campaign shrouded in mystery that leans into the protagonist’s hustler lifestyle and uses unconventional placements to generate ongoing buzz well before release.
hunter harris
Substack Creator and Podcast Host, My phone hung up.
Loving to love: Hunter Harris loves pop culture, but he has a lot of questions. Formerly a writer for Vulture and New York Magazine, she launched the Hung Up platform, which focuses on obsessions, both her own and those she perceives in the wider world. She still writes for others, most notably (surprisingly!) profiles of longtime couple Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song, and Hinge’s “No Ordinary Love” campaign.
Appointment TV: HBO’s The Pit has been hailed as a new frontier for medical dramas, and Harris helps viewers dig deeper into each episode as co-host of the official companion podcast.
Breaking the rules: Harris told Book of the Month that she started a Gossip Girl book club at her Catholic school. Fifteen years later, she joined the writing staff of the rebooted series on HBO Max.
Kate Oppenheim
Managing Partner, Transportation of Goods
Please give us a round of applause: Named 2025 Webby Production Company of the Year, Managing Partner Kate Oppenheim leads a team that knows how to set the internet on fire. The five awards spanned splashy campaigns, including KFC’s Saucy Nuggets Dispensary, a cannabis-infused version of KFC’s limited-edition condiment line, and the short film “Echoes of Ailey,” which featured dancers from the famed studio during the company’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
It’s not just advertising: Oppenheim, a three-time Emmy Award-winning producer, has been serving as executive vice president of the Tribeca Film Festival since 2021.
Lee Sung Jin
Writer, Director, Showrunner, Beef
Well done: The first season of Beef, released in 2023, was so intense that it’s still talked about. Ali Wong and Steve Yeun needed Lee Sung-jin’s empathetic and culturally savvy work to tackle class, mental health, and the need for relationships through a road rage feud.
Season 2 of New Beef, which premiered in April, not only features brand new stars Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan, but also brings to light the particular issue of generational conflict between Millennials and Gen Z.
Side project: Lee flew to South Korea to make a music video with RM of K-pop boy band BTS after the singing team sent him a DM on Instagram. Apparently, this series has resonated all over the world.
Mickey Down & Conrad Kaye
Co-creators, showrunners, writers, industry
The dark side of banking: Down and Kaye are behind HBO Max’s “Industry,” one of the sharpest dramas on TV. Their cult hit became a global success, praised for its unfiltered look at the often opaque world of finance.
Insider Tip: Both Oxford University and JPMorgan Chase alumni, they bring real-world insights to their stories. Most recently, Season 4, released in March, expanded the scope of the industry beyond London bank Pierpoint to new financial firms betting on short selling and being investigated by fintech journalists. As if I wasn’t nervous enough.
Vic Michaelis & Tamar Levine
Actors/Improvisers & Directors/Showrunners, very important people
It’s not what you think. Very Minimum People from comedy streaming service Dropout transforms improvisational actors into entirely new people through extreme transformations, then puts them in the hot seat for an interview with Vic Michaelis to figure out who they are.
That’s growth. Created to showcase the personal styles of guest comics, VIP has been talked about for being unpredictable and sometimes surprisingly heartfelt. The series is also a key driver of growth in Dropout’s subscriber base.
Listen: In addition to Tamar Levine’s empathetic direction, the series’ makeup, costume, and production design teams have also been widely praised.
alex addison
Vice President of Creative & Strategy, NBA Take-Two Media
Building something new: At the intersection of basketball, gaming, and pop culture, NBAT2’s Addison stands. The organization is a joint venture between the league and NBA 2K publisher Take Two Interactive. Launching in June 2025, NBAT2 reimagines the franchise as a creator-driven entertainment ecosystem, moving beyond competition and bringing fans closer to players with storytelling and live experiences.
The new guard: The viral moment when NBA commissioner Adam Silver brought in prominent basketball YouTuber Jesser as commissioner emeritus set the tone for 2K’s future. Addison also produces original programming, including the world travel series Nomad with Joakim Noah and the NBA’s unofficial test lab @nbaresdev, which experiments with new formats such as the groundbreaking Buddy Performance Index.
Ashish Verma
Bloomberg Media, Global Head of Creative and Bloomberg Media Studio
A driver of growth: For publishers known for their charts and news terminals, creativity is becoming a key driver of business. Under global ECD Ashish Verma, Bloomberg Media Studios has recorded double-digit growth, expanding from New York, London and Singapore to a new hub in Dubai.
Leverage technology: Verma’s work balances data and storytelling, like consulting firm BCG’s AI-powered CEO Radar, which turns earnings reports into predictive insights. UBS’s Market Rhythm turned abstract numbers into works of art, and luxury watchmaker Vacheron Constantin’s documentary Artisans of Time used cultural figures such as Le Bernardin chef Eric Ripert to tell stories of excellence. The latter generated 5 million impressions in one day.
charlotte owen
bustle editor in chief
Bustle Digital Group Editorial Vice President
Responsibility: Owen became Editorial Director of Bustle Digital Group in October 2024, quickly proving that creative storytelling that puts talent first can still drive ROI. In 2025, Bustle achieved huge financial gains across multiple categories, including increases of 575% in Food & Beverage, 397% in Pharma/OTC, and 232% in Financials.
Alternative cover: Owen can be seen hosting the celebrity video series he developed, “One Nightstand.” The series will invite guests such as Jesse Buckley, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Mindy Kaling to share what’s on their bookshelves, and episodes will reach more than 40 million views in 2025. Social impressions also increased by 31% compared to 2024 due to Owen’s directive to prioritize original and access footage on red carpets and BTS reporting.
Christian Davin, Dana Nussbaum, John Stanford
Co-Head of Global Marketing and Head of Global Creative Strategy, Warner Bros. Picture Group
The Dream Team: The global marketing and creative strategy behind every Warner Bros. film release is shaped by this trio, who have their finger on the pulse of cutting-edge data and culture. In 2025, the studio grossed more than $4 billion at the global box office and continued that momentum in 2026, marking the ninth consecutive year with a No. 1 opening weekend. This is an industry record that reflects the company’s ability to create breakthrough campaigns.
Collaboration first: Proving that they can handle well-known IP and original stories alike, the trio works closely with filmmakers to lead the charge to ensure stories as diverse as The Minecraft Movie and One Battle After Another find an audience.
Claudia Chaghi
Vice President of Marketing and Creative Strategy, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises
FOOTBALL NIGHT: It may be the biggest night in American sports, but Claudia Tsiagi, along with Owen Wilson and Sofia Vergara, reimagined the Super Bowl as the springboard for this summer’s FIFA World Cup. Using humor and bilingual storytelling, she connected with both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking audiences.
Home of culture: As creative director, she launched “El Mundial Es Nuestro,” an in-house countdown film to this summer’s World Cup, filmed with real fans in all of the tournament’s host cities, making Telemundo more than just a broadcaster but a cultural amplifier.
Prime-time dominance: Her tenure has produced top-ranked series (La Casa de los Famosos All Stars and Dinastia Casillas) and live events (2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards), all winning time slots for adults 18-49. The Miss Universe pageant was also the most-watched Spanish-language primetime entertainment special of the year.
ebony calls
Creative Director of Copy, AMC Global Media
Through streaming: One rebrand is enough to keep a person busy for a year. But AMC Global Media’s Ebony Coles tackled three in 2025. Horror streaming service Shudder has adopted a more tense tone to attract casual fans. Independent film streamer Sundance Now puts artistry to the forefront. And for her newly launched subscription video-on-demand service, For All Reality, she created a compelling brand voice from the ground up.
Discipline Strategy: Kohl’s guides copy and narrative strategy across the AMC network to deliver brand clarity and emotional resonance. Her research shows that it all starts with good copy, which serves as a leadership discipline that defines brand identity and cultural relevance.
Justin Stockman
Vice President of Content Development and Programming, Bell Media
Hot Hit: The wild popularity of the gay hockey romance may have taken the world by surprise, but not Justin Stockman of Canadian production company Bell Media. When developing the series, he prioritized ownership and creative control by fully funding the project in-house. It has since been sold in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and received a rare 10/10 episode rating on IMDb.
A Canadian icon: Stockman leads both Canada’s top streamer, Crave, and top broadcast network, CTV, with a content strategy built on smart risk-taking and strong IP. Under Stockman’s leadership, programming is now part of a global library of 5,500 hours, and deals with Seth Rogen and Elliot Page continue to expand Bell Media’s international reach.
lauren solomon
Senior Director of Global Brand & Marketing, Spotify
That’s it. If you’ve watched Spotify Wrapped at any point in the last nine years, you’ve felt the influence of Lauren Solomon. As senior director of global brand and marketing, she kept the annual event fresh, felt like a cultural phenomenon rather than a repeating tradition, and found new ways to connect with music fans.
New Sound: Solomon guided Spotify’s “Trust in Your Sound” Grammy Awards campaign. The campaign ties in with the Best New Artist category, which the platform has supported for years. Ahead of the awards ceremony, billboards from Louisiana to London displayed childhood photos of headliners such as Olivia Deen celebrating their path to the top of the industry. The song culminated in Spotify’s first TV spot, narrated by Elton John, during the Grammy Awards ceremony.
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