51 Women Who Made a Difference in 2024

The kingdom that Bajaria oversees is unprecedented. As Chief Content Officer of the world’s biggest streaming platform, she is in charge of all Netflix’s films and original series, which come from 27 countries and totaled almost 500 in 2024, at a production budget of a reported $17 billion. Her vision has been instrumental in redefining the television experience in the 21st century.

Born in London, Bajaria moved to the U.S. as a child and landed her first job in Hollywood in 1996 as an assistant at CBS after pitching herself to every studio in town via a letter-writing campaign. She quickly ascended to VP of movies and miniseries before moving to Universal Television, where she became the first woman of color to run the studio. (At the time, a female TV exec of Indian descent was extremely rare.) In 2016, she joined Netflix to lead unscripted content and licensing. Seven years later, she was promoted to her current role.

Under Bajaria’s savvy leadership, Netflix has spawned such game-changing hits as  “Squid Game,” “Bridgerton” and “Wednesday.” In 2024, the company won 24 Emmys for acclaimed shows including “Baby Reindeer,” “Ripley” and “Blue Eye Samurai.” Even with subscriber growth slowing, revenue ticked up 15% to $9.8 billion in the third quarter, thanks in no small part to audience hits like “Rebel Ridge” and “Monsters: The Lyle and Eric Menendez Story,” which racked up 1.7 billion viewing minutes in its first days of release.

You can’t talk about TV in 2024 without mentioning YouTube. And Coe is a big reason why. She has been key in executing CEO Neal Mohan’s vision of making YouTube part of viewers’ living rooms, the success of which can be seen in nearly every Nielsen report. In July the company set a record, becoming the first streaming service to command more than 10% of all TV use in the United States and beating out Disney. Coe has also been part of the company’s campaign to make YouTube stars Emmy-eligible as well as its strategy regarding election coverage. If you’re looking for the future of entertainment, it’s YouTube, and Coe is a leader at the front of that future. 

DreamWorks Animation was founded 30 years ago this year and became a Zeitgeist-capturing industry leader with the arrival of “Shrek” in 2001. But the most recent era of DreamWorks, the one led by Cohn, has been the company’s most exciting. 

A veteran of DreamWorks Animation’s television side, Cohn emboldened artists and animators to venture outside of what the studio is known for stylistically, creating features as varied and unique as “The Bad Guys,” “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” and “Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken.” The style of each of these movies was unique, bordering on the experimental, drawing inspiration from Studio Ghibli classics and Lisa Frank sticker books. 

DreamWorks’ latest feature, “The Wild Robot,” was enough to lure animation legend Chris Sanders back to the studio. It is the most stylistically bold movie that the company had ever made and also, perhaps, its greatest film ever. And its success, artistically and financially, is a testament to Cohn, who backed the movie every step of the way, even when those steps seemed scary and uncertain. Next, Cohn will revive the “Shrek” franchise, with the restless creativity and boundary-pushing animation that DreamWorks is now known for.

Literary manager Dickerman is known for her great taste and eye for talent, as evidenced by her multi-hyphenate client Ayo Edebiri’s ascent as an Emmy- and SAG-winning actress on “The Bear.” Her roster also includes Pulitzer Prize winning “English” playwright Sanaz Toossi and two Pulitzer drama finalists: Will Arbery (“Heroes of the Fourth Turning”; also wrote for “Succession”) and Sarah DeLappe (“The Wolves”; co-wrote “Bodies Bodies Bodies”). 

In August, it was announced that Dungey will lead all of Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. TV networks. She will take the reins in 2025, after Kathleen Finch retires. During her time with the company’s TV group, Dungey has overseen such massively watched and critically acclaimed shows as Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” and ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” as well as ratings hits like CBS’ “Young Sheldon” and “The Bachelor” franchise. Next up: a Harry Potter series for HBO in 2026.

The veteran producer and one-time co-president of the Producers Guild of America wrapped up 2024 with Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II,” a sequel 20-plus years in the making. The R-rated movie opened to a robust $55.5 million, proving she does indeed know how to keep audiences entertained. 

Disenchanted X users fleeing Elon Musk’s platform post-election found a safe haven in Bluesky, a company founded by Jack Dorsey in 2019 and overseen since 2021 by 33-year-old Lantian “Jay” Graber. The social platform has gained more than 5 million users in the weeks after Musk ally Donald Trump won the presidency. Now it has surged past 20 million total users and counting. Graber (whose name, coincidentally, means “blue sky” in Mandarin) has been steering the ship through this wild storm of growth with just 20 full-time staffers on her team.

As the person who sets Fox Corporation’s technology strategy, Hildebrandt makes decisions that affect the entire company — from Fox Sports to Fox News to Fox Entertainment to Fox TV stations to Tubi Media Group. And in an industry that changes at breakneck speed, she can’t help but innovate every day, engaging with and implementing emerging technologies.

Hildebrandt, who began her career in tech designing wargames for a U.S. military contractor, has become a leading voice in “AI optimism” and advocating for how Hollywood can use AI responsibly to confront such urgent matters as misinformation and deep fakes. This year, she developed Fox’s Verify, an open-source tool that protects digital intellectual property and verifies its authenticity. Her team is also constantly looking into ways to use AI to improve the Fox consumer experience.

Speaking at TheGrill in October, she warned against the entertainment industry taking a back-seat position to Big Tech. “I think we should be embracing the utilization of the technologies ourselves and experimenting,” she said, adding that AI “actually allows us to be competitive and increase our storytelling, increase our packaging of content, increase our employee productivity and their capabilities.”

Name some of the most innovative creators in television and chances are they’ve worked with Igbokwe. She currently leads four major TV studios: Universal Television, UCP, Universal Television Alternative Studio and Universal International Studios. Through those studios, she has overseen the production of more than 3,000 hours of global programming and has worked with everyone from Jordan Peele and Sam Esmail to Tina Fey, Michael Schur and Dick Wolf. At present, Igbokwe is in charge of 100-plus projects spanning more than 25 platforms all over the world. 

In addition to her roster of marquee clients — Angelina Jolie, Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, Riz Ahmed, Halle Berry, Josh O’Connor, Amanda Gorman, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, Stacey Abrams — Kole has made advocating for women and underrepresented groups a central part of the ethos of JSSK, which was founded in the wake of George Flloyd’s murder. Today, the firm employs a majority of women lawyers. Kole is also on the board of the Center for Reproductive Rights and in 2024 she spearheaded JSSK’s introduction of the Advancing Menopause Care and Mid-Life Women’s Health Act, the first bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate to include the word “menopause.” 

After a killer 2023, during which Langley was promoted and “Oppenheimer” grossed $976 million on its way to winning Best Picture, Langley concludes 2024 with another blockbuster and another promotion. “Wicked” smashed its opening weekend with $114 million, joining 2024 Universal hits “Despicable Me 4,” “Twisters” and “The Wild Robot.” Langley is still the only woman to head a legacy Hollywood studio, and following the company’s decision to spin off its cable networks, she adds two new corners to her fiefdom with oversight over all creative and marketing decisions across film, television and streaming. In other words, everything.

Since becoming president in 2019, the three-time Emmy winner has been a champion of some of the most genre-pushing and buzziest shows in the TV space. This year was no exception, with her slate including “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez,” “Grotesquerie” and most notably, “Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story,” which put the notorious 1989 case back in the public consciousness — and on the desk of the Los Angeles DA, who is currently reviewing a request for the brothers to be paroled after 35 years in prison. 

Parent has had a massive year. As leader of Legendary’s creative team, she is behind two of 2024’s biggest blockbusters: Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” ($714 million worldwide) and Adam Wingard’s “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” ($572 million worldwide). The nearly $1.3 billion haul helped Legendary buy back a majority stake from the Chinese company Wanda Group and keep the creative team intact, all but ensuring more banner years ahead.

Under Salke’s leadership, Amazon MGM kicked off the year with “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” the buzzy hit from Francesca Sloane and Donald Glover that earned 16 Emmy nominations and a second season. Next came “Fallout” (17 Emmy noms, 2.9 billion minutes watched, Season 2 on the way); the romantic comedy “The Idea of You” (50 million worldwide viewers in its first week); and on the big screen, Luca Guadagnino’s R-rated sleeper “Challengers.” At a recent event, Salke said, “Women are at the core of our business.” An upcoming female-lead “Reacher” spinoff and a long-awaited “Tomb Raider” reboot from Phoebe Waller-Bridge could back that up.

Shannon is reshaping CAA for the AI era. She spearheaded the groundbreaking CAA Vault, which uses Veritone AI technology to capture and store artists’ voice and digital likenesses. A champion of “ethical AI,” Shannon said at TheGrill this past fall, “We had to figure out, what does it mean for our clients? How do we, on the one hand, protect them from any sort of misuse when the laws [to safeguard artists] aren’t there anytime soon? But on the other hand, there’s undeniable opportunity with these tools and technologies.”

As UTA’s tech pioneer, Silverman is driving the agency’s digital pivot. She established UTA’s first Digital Assets division, launching major NFT projects for her client Halsey while brokering AI deals including Awkwafina’s voice partnership with Meta AI. A former art attorney, Silverman now shapes the future of entertainment through landmark tech initiatives on AI and emerging technologies.

Disney made history multiple times at the 76th Emmys, where it earned an eye-watering 395 nominations and 115 wins for culture-defining hits like “Shōgun,” “The Bear” and “Only Murders in the Building.” With its stack of 18 shiny statuettes, “Shōgun” alone set a new record for the most Emmy wins in a single year. In addition to those critical darlings, there are family favorites like “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” and “Bluey,” which became the No. 1 streaming series in the U.S. with 35 billion minutes watched. Walden is on the kind of winning streak that could make her the first woman CEO of Disney in its 101-year history when Bob Iger names his successor in 2026.