Meet Variety’s 41 Under 40: The New Leaders Class of 2025

As far back as the decline of gladiatorial games in the 1st century AD, pundits have complained that this or that sector of the entertainment industry is on the brink of oblivion, and it’s safe to say that people have groused that the next generation is “going to the dogs” even longer. Variety’s 2025 class of New Leaders is an antidote to that type of thinking, proving that a time of contraction and disruption can also be a time of opportunity if you have a vision and the tenacity to back it up.

Patrick Carroll
Director, brands + gaming
Done+Dusted

Carroll executive produced “WrestleMania 41,” which had a 114% increase in viewership over the previous installment, making it the most successful WWE event in history. He also co-executive produced “League of Legends Worlds 2024,” which broke esports viewership records with a peak of 6.94 million concurrent viewers, and the Emmy winning “Valorant Champions 2024.” “I found my first niche in gaming,” he says. “I got my start at Done+ Dusted because they were looking for somebody who authentically knew that world and I couldn’t believe that was a job qualification.” 

Kylie Kelce 
Host, producer
“Not Gonna Lie” podcast

Kelce was pushed into the media spotlight because of her marriage to Philadelphia Eagles star Jason Kelce, whose brother, Travis, happens to be dating a pretty famous singer called Taylor Swift. Jason is now retired from the NFL, but his wife grabbed the mic in December 2024, launching the podcast “Not Gonna Lie,” with Wave Sports & Entertainment, mixing no-B.S. stories of her life and motherhood with women’s sports stars and celebrity guests like Ed Sheeran, Kate Hudson and Michelle Obama. “If you’re gonna talk about our family, if you’re gonna talk about me, you might as well hear it from me,” Kylie said at the time. It was an instant success — at one point taking over the No. 1 slot from Joe Rogan.

Jacob Moncrief
Chief operating officer
Mythical Entertainment

Moncrief got his start in traditional TV (“The Ellen Show,” MTV), but the Mythical COO says his career really jumped to another level when he joined BuzzFeed in its early “Wild West” days. “I got to come in and experience a lot of growth very early on in my career in terms of creating systems and managing processes that allowed early OG creators to really shine,” he says. Home to wildly popular YouTube shows like “Good Mythical Morning,” the company is on track to grow branded revenue from last year by about 80%, he says, thanks to relationships with companies like Etsy.

Mack Sovereign
Chief content officer
Wave Sports & Entertainment

Sovereign oversaw Wave Sports & Entertainment’s foray into lifestyle content with podcasts such as “House of Maher,” featuring Olympic rugby sensation Ilona Maher and her sisters Olivia and Adrianna “Dre Baby” Maher, and “Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce,” the latter of which debuted at No. 1 on both Apple and Spotify and earned more than 26 million weekly views across platforms. “Our expansion and investment into women’s sports and women’s storytelling more broadly has been led by Kylie Kelce and Ilona Maher, who have massive fan bases already,” he says. “It’s been one of biggest successes of the year.”

Roman Wassenmüller 
Head of podcast business
Spotify 

Wassenmüller’s team launched the Spotify Partner Program in January, an initiative that allows podcasters to generate revenue directly from premium subscriber streams. It’s been so successful — video podcast consumption on Spotify has increased by over 20%, and creator payouts have increased — the program has expanded to other global markets. “Progress has been phenomenal,” says Wassenmüller, who credits Spotify co-president and chief business officer Alex Norström as one of his mentors. “Video will remain a major part of Spotify. It strengthens fan connections and opens the door … to content creators.”

Kyle Carter
Senior VP, Global Touring
IAG

Carter runs IAG’s L.A. music office and leads the agency’s hip-hop and R&B division, home to stars like Mary J. Blige and Keyshia Cole. He’s got a serious knack for spotting crossover potential with film, TV and brand partnerships, which has helped artists like 50 Cent and Ne-Yo level up their global tours and sell out legendary venues. “The pieces always fall into place if you look and work for it,” he says. “Never be afraid of failure as failure always leads to success as long as you’re willing not to give up too early; there are never any real issues or problems, only solutions.”

Alexis Fisher
Founder, CEO
Timeline Management, Timeline Touring

The value of Fisher’s business plan and the sector it serves was demonstrated in December when Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, acquired a majority stake in her digital influencer management and live event company Timeline. In the months since, Timeline has announced deals for a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders tour offering fans live on-stage auditions and a Las Vegas live show for the stars of Hulu’s “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” “My whole thing is taking things that you would not expect to go on tour, which is a similar model to what I did with influencers back in the day,” she says. “It was like paving the road map for other for other people to then follow.”

Marissa Frobes
Media finance agent
CAA 

Frobes orchestrated the domestic sale of Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” to A24 ahead of its Venice premiere last year, brokered the sale of “The Luckiest Man in America” to IFC Films following its Toronto debut and raised financing for Mona Fastvold’s “The Testament of Ann Lee,” co-written and co-produced by Corbet and starring Amanda Seyfried. Frobes also helped package and finance Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” with Mubi and the Zellner brothers’ “Alpha Gang,” both currently in production. She may deal in movies by trade, but that hasn’t dulled her love for sitting down to watch good film: “I always can recenter myself by doing that,” she says.

Zac Frognowski, Josh Glick
Managers and producers
Brillstein Entertainment Partners

Frognowski and Glick aren’t just co-workers, they’re best friends. Recent big signings for the duo include actor, comedian and YouTube personality Jimmy Tatro (brokered deal with HBO for his new show “Lifites”) and Oscar-winning writer Stephen Gaghan (sold his film “Billion Dollar Ransom” to Amazon). Frognowski aims to have the projects he works on impact the larger culture in some way. For Glick, things clicked for him after a fateful encounter with a book. “I was given a copy of ‘Where Did I Go Right: You’re No One in Hollywood Until Somone Wants You Dead’ and read it over a weekend and immediately knew I wanted to be a Hollywood manager,” he says.

Jermaine Johnson
Partner
3 Arts Entertainment

Johnson produced “American Fiction,” written and helmed by client Cord Jefferson, who won an Oscar for adapted screenplay for the film in 2024. He also closed major deals for clients including Dana Ledoux Miller, co-director and co-writer of “Moana 2,” which grossed over $1 billion worldwide. “I would tell the next generation to pick up the phone and call people,” he says. “The generation that’s making the decisions calls people on the phone to talk through a negotiation. The upside of a phone call vastly outweighs the negative, so pick up the phone and you might make a new friend.”

Gabrielle Kachman
Talent agent
Gersh 

A first-generation American whose mom hails from Colombia, Kachman got her start as a literary agent assistant to Brendan Deneen at FinePrint in New York. From the agency’s sludge pile, she identified an eventual bestseller that would spawn a movie adaptation, Kody Keplinger’s “The Duff,” bolstering her confidence. “That was the first break into being able to see that I could trust my instincts in a real way,” she recalls. After spending time at CAA and Authentic Talent, Kachman landed at Gersh in 2016, where she’s assembled an impressive client roster including “Abbott Elementary” star Tyler James Williams and Tony nominee Sarah Pidgeon, who’s next set to play Carolyn Bessette in Ryan Murphy’s “American Love Story.” 

Andrew Mathes
Partner
WME

By a quirk of fate, Mathes started work in the mailroom of Endeavor talent agency on June 1, 2009, the day the scrappy 14-year-old agency announced its stunning takeover of the venerable William Morris Agency. “It was quite a first day,” he recalls. Mathes spent three weeks in what became overnight the WME mailroom before being promoted to the desk of literary agent Julie Weitz. That nod set him on the road to a successful career. “I love that you get to touch many different parts of the ecosystem, whether it’s writers, producers, directors, actors. You get to really be part of the process of building a lot of these shows from the ground up,” Mathes says. “It’s highly rewarding.”

David Morris
Agent, production arts
UTA 

Morris represents an impressive list of behind-the-scenes talent, including the exec producers of the series “Andor” (Sanne Wohlenberg), “Black Rabbit” (Erica Kay), “Severance” (Caroline Baron), “The White Lotus” (Mark Kamine) and “Yellowstone” (Hilton Smith). He praises his team in the production arts department, which has a roster that earned a total 39 Emmy nominations this year: “I’m really fortunate to work with a diverse set of agents who have amazing disciplines, who come from a series of backgrounds, whether they are former executives like myself, or working in commercial studios.”  

Stephanie Roeser
Partner, employment & labor
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips

Roeser is at the center of one of the hottest entertainment stories of the past year as a lead member of the legal team representing Blake Lively in her ongoing litigation against Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and other parties and the defense of the actress and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, in a related countersuit. A complex matter raising issues related to California employment law and protected speech that now encompasses three consolidated cases, it’s legal catnip for a born litigator like Roeser. “I was one of those kids who was constantly negotiating with my parents every single day, so I think they probably thought I was always destined to be a lawyer,” she says.

Jillian Taboada
Associate
Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang

Taboada is an integral part of a Del Shaw Moonves legal team that handles on-camera talent such as former Netflix exec Bozoma Saint John (“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”) and “Access Hollywood” co-host Zuri Hall. She’s also made big scores in the sports arena, including deals for the NFL related to Super Bowl LIX and the 2025 NFL Draft. “If I don’t get the result I want, I’m not going to boo-hoo about it for too long,” she says. “I’m going to pick myself up and try to find another way.”

Alex Yousefzadeh
Partner
Donaldson Callif Perez

Yousefzadeh is the person you call if you’re making a documentary and you don’t want to get sued. He handles clearance legal for production companies including Kunhardt Films (“The Silent Witness”), Altimeter Films (“Carvile: Winning Is Everything, Stupid”) and XTR (“Diane Warren: Relentless”). The work involves personal rights reviews and fair use counsel, the latter of which involves some tricky questions. “What is the potential for a claim that insurance is going to feel comfortable writing a policy for and defending against?” he asks rhetorically. “Or is this something that we can potentially bring within various parameters by making modifications to it so it’s transformative enough that there won’t be actual significant market harm?”

Cynthia J. Tong
Producer
Tom Kirdahy Prods

Tong produced two of Broadway’s starriest shows this year — “Just in Time” with Jonathan Groff and the “Gypsy” revival with Audra McDonald, the latter of which earned Tong her second Tony nom. She says working on the former for the last five years “from first draft to opening the show to maintaining the show” truly helped her grow as a producer. While her mentor Tom Kirdahy taught her the value of relationships and growing from failure, one of the lessons she takes most to heart is a simple one: “We must have fun doing the work we do, otherwise why do it?”

Derrick Aroh
Senior VP, A&R
RCA Records

As someone who’s always loved music, Aroh takes pride in working to develop the talents of many of today’s top performers. He’s collaborated with Latto, whose recent album, “Sugar Honey Iced Tea,” debuted in the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Top Rap Albums chart. He also helped sign and develop Myles Smith, whose song “Stargazing” has over 1 billion streams. “The thing that means the most to me is to see the things I work on play a role in people’s lives,” he says. “I remember those moments for me when a Jay-Z song or a Biggie Smalls song did that for me.”

Zach Friedman
Chief operating officer
Atlantic Music Group

Back in 2012, Friedman and his friend Tony Talamo started a management, merchandising and digital marketing agency out of their parents’ basements in New Jersey, appropriately dubbed Homemade Projects, and they never really had any other jobs until 2018. That’s when they began working with Elliot Grange’s 10K Projects, which four years later acquired the company and its Homemade Records label. When Grainge was named CEO of Atlantic last year, he brought along Friedman and Talamo as COO and GM, respectively. “Taking our digital marketing [skills] and providing them at the executive level has been really exciting and fun,” says Friedman.

Jessica Giraldo Navarro
CEO
Bichota Records

“For any manager, it’s always about protecting the best interests of your client — but for me, it goes beyond that,” says Giraldo Navarro. That’s probably because her client is her sister, Colombian Grammy-winner Karol G, who also happens to be the founder of the label she runs. Launched in 2023 through a distribution deal with Interscope, the label allows Karol G to retain ownership of her masters, while the major handles distribution and promotion. Under the Bichota umbrella, the company also operates a creative agency and a film division, which partnered with Netflix to release a documentary on Karol G’s stadium tour earlier this year.

Forrest Lipton 
VP, marketing  
Interscope Geffen A&M

Lipton is instrumental in the marketing efforts for such artists as Playboi Carti, whose 2025 album “Music” became his second consecutive No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. Lipton is also a central player in marketing the artists who’ve signed to Carti’s Opium label, including rapper Destroy Lonely. “The first artist and team that gave me a shot was Benny Blanco and [his manager] Andrew Luftman and they taught me so much about music, marketing, storytelling and branding that I still use to this day,” he says. “They’re all marketing geniuses.”

Ashley Alexander
VP, film
Hasbro Entertainment

Alexander oversees development and production on what she affectionately refers to as “nerd movies.” She helped bring Hasbro’s beloved tabletop role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons” to the big screen with 2023’s “Honor Among Thieves,” starring Chris Pine, and with “Magic: The Gathering,” directed by Matt Johnson, she’s about to do it again. Though Hasbro has become known for attaching A-list talent to major IP, Alexander’s process begins at a more grassroots level: “I go into the game shop every week,” she says. “I love hanging out with our fans, like, ‘What’s exciting you today? Let’s chat. You can destroy me in this game of “Magic.”’”

Jasmine Daghighian
VP of film
Topic Studios 

Last year was a major step forward for Daghighian and Topic Studios, which burst into the awards race with “A Real Pain” and saw the film’s co-star Kieran Culkin win an Oscar and a Golden Globe. One of her personal career breakthroughs was pushing for a promising young actor to try out for indie film “Hot Summer Nights” at her previous company, Imperative. “I saw ‘Interstellar’ when we were casting the lead, and I saw Timothée Chalamet as the brother role,” she says. “I was like, this kid is really special. We should maybe bring him in for an audition.’”

Courtney Freedman
VP, production
Paramount Pictures

Freedman helped shape the action-comedy “Novocaine” and was instrumental in bringing Michael Gracey’s Oscar-nominated biopic “Better Man” to life. Up next: “Winter Games,” “Reality Vice” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin.” “Someone once told me, ‘Once you get to a certain point in your career everyone is smart and hard-working and the only thing that sets you apart is your taste, so you have to really cultivate that,’” she says. “I’ve tried to keep that in the forefront of my mind ever since and let it be my North Star in being thoughtful and intentional in the choices I make.”

Shawn Goehl
VP, U.S. film development & production
CJ ENM

Goehl leads South Korean entertainment giant CJ ENM’s domestic efforts to produce English-language films, from adaptations of the company’s homegrown hits (including the currently-in-development “Extreme Job,” “The Man from Nowhere” and “Veteran”) to original projects such as Yorgos Lanthimos’ upcoming film “Bugonia,” starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, on which he serves as co-executive producer. He attributes much of his current success to the five years he spent working with producer Donald De Line (“Ready Player One”). “I kind of got a five-year masterclass on how to produce a movie from him. and I’ve utilized that training here at CJ,” he says.

Kaylon Hunt
VP, development & production
JuVee Prods.

Hunt has been with Viola Davis and Julius Tennon’s JuVee Prods. for nearly 15 years, working on projects like “The Woman King” and the upcoming video game “Taria & Como,” and he takes his job very personally. “When you spend a lot of time working on something, whether it’s developing something created by someone else or something you wrote, you’re so close to it you have no idea how other people might receive it,” says Hunt, who also wrote the book “American Wolf: A Journey of an Avoidant Heart,” released this year. “It’s terrifying but it’s also freeing.”

Anna Klein
Director of documentary programming
HBO 

Klein says she loves working in nonfiction because “I get to work on so many different types of projects — biopics, portraits, politics, culture, crime.” Currently, HBO Documentaries’ “My Mom Jayne” is getting an enthusiastic audience response. She was inspired by working with the doc’s director Mariska Hargitay. “I think it was something she had been thinking about for a long time, and it felt like such a privilege to be able to work with her, to help bring this story to light,” says Klein, who started at HBO at 22. Up next: “Thoughts and Prayers,” about the gun violence preparedness industry.

Chelsea Marotta
Creative producer
Religion of Sports

The Emmy-nominated Marotta brings more than a decade of experience in unscripted development to Religion of Sports, the media company co-founded by Tom Brady. Her recent work includes the docuseries “The Fastest Six Weeks in Sports,” focusing on the time between the end of NCAA Women’s March Madness and the beginning of the WNBA season, which premieres in September on the Roku Channel, YouTube and social media. Although her professional life is focused on sports, she’s long harbored a passion for literature. “I think a lot of us in television loved books,” she says. “I always loved them and I love magical realism and the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.”

Josey McNamara, Tom Ackerley
Partners, Co-CEOs
LuckyChap Entertainment

LuckyChap’s origins are well-told lore: McNamara and Ackerley worked as assistant directors on a film in which Margot Robbie starred; then the trio —who became flatmates before Ackerley and Robbie married — founded the now red-hot prodco. In the decade since, McNamara, Ackerley and their “no so secret weapon” Robbie have shepherded attention-grabbing films like “I, Tonya,” “Saltburn” and the $1.4 billion blockbuster “Barbie,” plus hit TV shows “Maid” and “Sirens.” As they look ahead to the next decade and think about expansion and growth, McNamara says, “It’s always with the idea of, ‘How do we improve the experience for filmmakers and talent when they work with us? Whether it’s giving them new opportunities to explore TV, theater or music, how do we offer more of a 360-degree idea of what working with LuckyChap could be?’”

Sev Ohanian
Producer, Founder
Proximity Media 

Ohanian’s producing career began in 2008 when he wrote and directed “My Big Fat Armenian Family,” a “no-budget” indie inspired by his life, shot on his dad’s camcorder. It’s a far cry from the Imax cameras used for “Sinners” — the blockbuster original thriller produced by Proximity Media, which Ohanian co-leads with Ryan Coogler and Zinzi Coogler — but that starter project influenced him to make filmmaking a career. Today, Ohanian oversees Proximity’s slate, which he says had him spending 14 months living in Atlanta “shooting ‘Creed III,’ straight into ‘Ironheart,’ Zooming for ‘Eyes of Wakanda’ and helping run the company.” Of what he loves about producing, Ohanian says, “Our job is to make the impossible possible.” 

Will Phelps
President
American High

Phelps has produced 19 feature films under his production banner American High, including “Big Time Adolescence” and “Plan B.” The company operates out of a defunct middle school in upstate New York, which now serves as a movie studio. Phelps also put together a digital content arm with two sketch comedy groups that film at the former school. “We use the same strategy as our movies: shoot fast, make mistakes, learn from the mistakes and adjust quickly,” he says. Next is their first theatrical release, “Rolling Loud,” starring Owen Wilson.

Jason Wald
Senior VP, acquisitions & production 
Neon 

Wald led the negotiations for buzzy Sundance acquisition “Together” and “No Other Choice.” But his biggest accomplishment is his collaboration with Osgood Perkins. He was the lead creative executive on the director’s horror films “The Monkey” and the $100 million-plus hit “Longlegs,” and Neon is prepping to release his next film, “Keeper,” this fall. “Oz speaks to one of the main overarching reasons that we as a company got into production in the first place, which was to create a long-term home for filmmakers we love working with,” Wald says.

Loreli Alanís
Senior VP
Point Grey Pictures

Alanis has worked on Point Grey’s Amazon series “The Boys” since its inception and was a key force behind its first live-action spinoff “Gen V,” serving as a producer on the ground in Toronto during the shooting of its second season. Now, the first-generation Mexican American and mother of two small children is developing a Spanish-language prequel, “Vought Rising,” with Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal as producers. “’The Boys’ does such a great job at skewering American power structures and how corporations and politics collide and impact people here domestically,” she says, “and what this spinoff is doing is kind of showing how American power structures also impact people internationally, globally and, specifically, in Mexico.”

Jax Clark
VP of development & production
Hoorae

For Clark, working at Issa Rae’s production company Hoorae has been an opportunity to help bring creative voices to the forefront of entertainment in projects like the HBO series “Rap Shit,” a comedy created by Rae based on the lives of two rappers. “I think the thing that gets me excited is discovering a new voice,” says Clark, who planned to become a lawyer, but had a change of heart while traveling in Cuba. “If I read a script and find myself quoting from it or remembering it, then I know I’ve connected with the material.”
 
Ashley Cole
Senior VP, drama development
Warner Bros. Television

At WBTV, Cole has had a standout year as the development executive behind two critically acclaimed series — “The Pitt” and “The Penguin” — with both being major Emmy contenders following multiple nominations. “I think people are really craving to feel something again, and to have the safety of people that are just trying to do good in the world, as you see in ‘The Pitt,’” she says. Cole is also developing the “Crazy Rich Asians” TV adaptation for HBO Max, with the film’s co-writer Adele Lim on board as showrunner. “[Lim] is just going to bring the tone and joy and humor and love that people fell in love with from the movie,” Cole says.

Emily Furutani
VP, Comedy
Disney Entertainment Television

Furutani is helping shape the future of stand-up at Hulu with her work on “Hularious,” the streamer’s monthly series of comedy specials. Since launching with Jim Gaffigan’s “The Skinny,” it’s become a go-to for both fresh talent and big names like Bill Burr and Ilana Glazer. Up next: new specials from Sebastian Maniscalco and Andrew Santino. She says it was watching shows like “The Office” and “30 Rock” with her family that led her to a career in comedy. “They gave us something to laugh about together, inside jokes and all. I was determined to be a part of creating that feeling for others, even in the smallest capacity.”

Hilary Leavitt
President
Upside Down Pictures

The one thing Leavitt wants people to know is that she loves her job — and why shouldn’t she? As the producing partner of the Duffer brothers, she’s helped usher some of the most original storytelling to screens. That includes the upcoming final season of “Stranger Things” and two upcoming series — “The Boroughs,” starring Geena Davis, and Haley Z. Boston’s “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” (“It’s going to be blow people’s minds!” she enthuses). Growing up, Leavitt was obsessed with film and TV and says, “I now feel very passionate about making things that might inspire the same joy in other little weirdos out there.”

Lauren O’Connor
Head of global IP acquisitions
Amazon MGM Studios

O’Connor snagged the rights to BookTok sensation “Fourth Wing” ahead of its publication in April 2023, paving the way for Amazon’s upcoming romantasy TV adaptation to become one of the hottest projects in Hollywood. In recent months, she’s also cut deals for adaptations of the video games “Mass Effect,” “Tomb Raider” and “The Sims.” “My entire role anchors on being early in identifying where culture and fandoms could go, and then believing in creators — whether that’s the written word, whether it’s a video game, whether it’s a comic book,” O’Connor says, adding, “When that amazing thing hits your desk, you just know.”

Tre Shallowhorn
Global head of production
Bloomberg Originals

Shallowhorn began his documentary career studying abroad in Brazil, when he decided to turn his camcorder on locals and ask about inequities faced by Afro Brazilians. When he returned to his studies at UCLA, his footage earned him a spot in the film program. He went on to earn a master’s in documentary production at NYU and serve as a producer at Vox Media and NBC News before landing at Bloomberg, where today he oversees a slate of originals that includes “The Deal” and “An Optimist’s Guide to the Planet.” He advises up-and-comers to gain experience in as many aspects of the production as possible, so they “can truly speak the language and better connect with folks up and down the chain.”

Kenny Tsai
Senior VP, current programming
Universal Content Prods.

Growing up as the child of two immigrants in Southern California, Tsai found his way into American culture via television. After attending NYU, his first job in the industry was as a showrunner’s assistant on “Boardwalk Empire.” Now, he looks at overseeing Apple TV+’s “Cape Fear” — a series inspired by John D. Macdonald’s 1957 novel “The Executioners” and its big screen adaptations from 1962 and 1991 — as a full-circle moment. “I love working on the studio side,” says Tsai, who also guides Hulu’s upcoming “Murdaugh Murders” limited series. “It’s what I always wanted to do.”

Sahar Vahedi
Director, scripted series development
Netflix

As a self-described “latchkey kid of immigrants who learned about the world through TV and movies,” Vahedi has always had a passion for entertainment. Now she’s responsible for bringing it to the world via such Netflix originals as “The Diplomat” and “Ransom Canyon,” along with an upcoming adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Unaccustomed Earth.” She began her career as an intern “manning the Red Bull mini fridge” at Double Feature Films, where she was mentored by its co-founder Stacey Sher, who, she says, “taught me what it meant to be a fierce advocate for artists, and how to make the right kind of noise when it feels like no one’s listening.”