The Most Powerful Women in International TV

As the worldwide tv market heads to Cannes for MIPCOM, which runs Oct. 12-15, scale has actually ended up being the sector’s response to survival. Comcast’s Sky has actually consented to purchase ITV’s broadcasting and streaming organizations for 1.6 billion pounds ($ 2.12 billion), while Banijay’s $8 billion megamerger with All3Media has actually produced an (even bigger) indie production and circulation colossus. These offers are an action to something larger: an organization whose standard designs, constructed on direct schedules, scripted dramas and foreseeable advertisement incomes, are being overthrown by streaming, vertical dramas and AI’s capability to automate parts of the imaginative procedure.

For the females on THR‘s 2026 list of one of the most Powerful Women in International Television, the difficulty is to adjust to technological disturbance without losing what makes the work worth enjoying.” You’ve got to continue to purchase AI, “states ITV chief Carolyn McCall, who worked out the Sky offer.” You’ve got to continue to buy performance, and most notably, you’ve got to have sufficient cash to continuously purchase material, since material is where it’s at. That’s what makes you all your cash.” It’s a belief– lean into the innovation however keep a concentrate on the innovative– echoed by the officers throughout this list. Rai Fiction’s Maria Pia Ammirati warns versus “the increasing propensity to entrust imaginative procedures to innovation,” while Renata Brandão of Brazil’s Conspiração Filmes desires the market to trust “manufacturers, developers and impulse over predictive metrics.”

Choices were based upon an executive’s decision-making authority– the capability to greenlight, commission or financing material– integrated with the effect and efficiency of their work over the previous 12 months.

Mo Abudu

CEO, EbonyLife Media (Nigeria)

Abudu has actually developed EbonyLife from a tv network into among Africa’s the majority of enthusiastic independent media business, covering movie and tv production, skill advancement and home entertainment. She started her media profession as the host of pan-African talk program Minutes With Moreleasing her own network, EbonyLife television, in 2013 and movie production business EbonyLife Films the list below year. EbonyLife was the very first African business to sign a multititle handle Netflix, with Blood Sisters ending up being Netflix’s very first Nigerian Original series. Abudu has actually given that broadened her worldwide collaborations with business consisting of Sony, Lionsgate, the BBC and Westbrook Studios.

Her brick-and-mortar efforts consist of the EbonyLife Creative Academy in Lagos, which uses complimentary training on filmmaking and media material production, and the home entertainment and way of life resort EbonyLife Place. On Oct. 8, Abudu will open EbonyLife Place London, a movie theater, dining establishment and music/art location to display African skill.

States Abudu: “Talent is all over, however chance, capital and ownership are not. I think of how we produce a future where African writers are not simply informing our stories however owning them, funding them and taking them to the world.”

Maria Pia Ammirati

Director, Rai Fiction (Italy)

Ammirati has actually invested more than 3 years at Italian public broadcaster Rai, moving from journalism and cultural shows into senior management and turning into one of Italy’s many prominent tv executives. In a minute when industrial television remains in crisis throughout Europe, public broadcasters are blazing a trail both highly, purchasing online and mobile production and circulation, and artistically: Rai Fiction’s fall slate consists of an enthusiastic duration drama about the rags-to-riches Panini household publishing empire and the funny criminal offense series A Small Formalitywhich is concentrated on millennials, an ignored demonstration in standard television.

“Audience tastes develop, as do the social context, innovations and the methods which individuals engage with stories,” states Ammirati. “What worries me most is the increasing propensity to hand over innovative procedures to innovation, with the threat of slowly losing direct contact with the truth we are hired to represent. It is a difficulty we can attend to and get rid of just by making sure that the human element stays at the heart of the innovative procedure.”

Nadine Bilke

Chief Content Officer, ZDF (Germany)

A qualified reporter who made her doctorate looking into the quality of crisis and war reporting, Bilke signed up with the German public broadcaster in 2002 and invested much of her early profession structure ZDF’s digital journalism operation. She ended up being head of ZDFneo in 2018, assisting place the channel for more youthful, digitally oriented audiences, before ending up being program director for the moms and dad broadcaster in 2022. Accountable for setting for a country of 84 million, Bilke states the something she frets about “is the growing fragmentation of our societies. We have more content, more platforms and more methods to engage than ever in the past, yet it is ending up being harder to develop shared experiences and a typical cultural discussion.”

Marie-Philippe Bouchard

President and CEO, CBC/Radio Canada

Bouchard took control of CBC/Radio-Canada in January 2025, presuming the challenging function of running Canada’s public broadcaster as direct tv diminishes, U.S. banners control Canadian television, and President Trump’s tariff war and 51st state taunts drive an increase in Canadian patriotism. That’s a benefit for a significant broadcaster with a required to provide regional news, existing affairs shows and homegrown television series coast-to-coast. Bouchard concerned the task from TV5 Québec Canada, the French-language broadcaster, where she acted as president and CEO from 2016-24.

Renata Brandão

CEO, Conspiração Filmes (Brazil)

Brandão signed up with Conspiração Filmes in 2006 after studying global relations and interactions and finishing film-industry research studies at UCLA, at first as a production assistant before moving into preparation and service management. She ended up being president of organization in 2015 and CEO in 2017, assisting change among Brazil’s best-established independent production business into a significantly worldwide operation. Brandão likewise has actually broadened Conspiração’s tv service beyond Brazil, consisting of into Spanish-language production in Mexico. In 2017, she likewise established Hysteria, a Conspiração label concentrated on stories fixated ladies. “The fixation with relying strictly on ‘tested IP,’ remakes or hyper-calculated solutions has actually resulted in prevalent audience tiredness throughout platforms,” she states. “I would enjoy to see the market go back to relying on manufacturers, developers and impulse over predictive metrics.”

Amelia Brown

CEO, Fremantle U.K.

It simply made good sense when Brown was designated Fremantle U.K. CEO in 2023: The market veteran has actually been with the business for more than 20 years, critical in such early hits as Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor and later on Too Hot to Handle for Netflix and Mamma Mia! I Have a Dream for ITV. At the top of the food cycle, Brown leads the business technique for among Britain’s the majority of respected production attire and manages the output of every Fremantle U.K. label.

Carol Choi

Executive VP, The Walt Disney Co. (Asia-Pacific)

Choi’s remit covers both sides of Disney’s Asia-Pacific aspirations: bringing its Hollywood franchises to local audiences and constructing a slate of homegrown streaming originals. A Disney veteran because 2006, she formerly ran the business’s Japan and Korea companies and now manages studios, initial material method and incorporated marketing throughout the area. With a substantial ramp-up of Disney+’s production of worldwide originals now underway, she indicates the work of groups in Japan, Korea and Australia as a specific source of pride this year. “From Perfect Crown to A Shop for Killers season 2, Fight of Fates and The One Shotit’s clear that terrific regional stories can stand happily along with our most renowned international franchises,” she states.

Priya Dogra

CEO, Channel 4 (U.K.)

Dogra was called CEO of the British broadcaster in December, taking over from Alex Mahon. Her résumé was substantive: She signed up with Comcast-owned Sky in 2024 as its primary marketing, group information and brand-new profits officer, having actually operated at Warner Bros. Discovery and its predecessors for 14 years. At Channel 4, she’s certainly acquired among the trickiest tasks in the biz– the cash-strapped PSB needs to adjust or pass away– and in September revealed a raft of cuts, she stated, part of C4’s “long-lasting change technique.”

Cécile Frot-Coutaz

CEO, Sky Studios; Chief Content Officer, Sky (U.K.)

The Sky Studios employer in fact had her function broadened following Dogra’s departure to Channel 4 and now manages its marketing department, too. Frot-Coutaz’s remit was currently large– she leads the advancement, production and commissioning of all of Sky’s initial programs, consisting of such record-breaking titles as the Emmy-nominated The Day of the Jackal and the dangerous SNL UK spinoff. More just recently, she’s promoted the Dominic West and Sienna Miller-led Warset to control our screens this fall, and played an essential function because massive, billion-dollar ITV-Sky sale. Frot-Coutaz likewise monitors Sky Studios Elstree, Sky’s advanced movie and television studio, plus Sky Studios’ international portfolio of production business that consists of Blast! Movies, Jupiter Entertainment, True North and Love Productions.

Jay Hunt

Imaginative Director of Worldwide Video, Europe, Apple (U.K.)

The British Film Institute chair has actually continued to deftly straddle 2 massive tasks in European movie and television. At Apple television, she’s been critical in its shift from middle of the pack to banner to beat, having actually promoted a few of the platform’s most significant worldwide hits, most especially the Emmy-winning Slow Horseswhich simply scored a 8th season, the BAFTA-winning Bad Sisters and enduringly popular The BuccaneersAmongst Hunt’s the majority of prepared for upcoming commissions are Will Sharpe’s magnum opus, Prodigiesand Juno Temple’s stellar comedy-drama The Husbands

Angela Jain

Head of Content, Disney+ EMEA( U.K.)

Jain is supervising a system that consists of the similarity Competitors Amazing and Stephen Graham’s A Thousand Blows3 big programs that assisted rating Disney +a record 15 BAFTA television Award nods in March. Before signing up with the Disney+ group in 2015, Jain had commissioning stints at E4 and ITV2, where she was accountable for a few of the greatest British programs, consisting of Misfits and The InbetweenersAt ITV Studios, she managed big-hitters Love Island and I’m a CelebUnder Jain, the EMEA group is “increase” production throughout Europe, with local commissions consisting of the Venice-premiering Oasis documentary and Italy’s Murder on Lake Garda

Ekta Kapoor

Joint Managing Director, Balaji Telefilms (India)

More than 3 years after co-founding Balaji, Kapoor stays among Indian tv’s specifying hitmakers. Her restored household soap Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2 has actually topped rankings charts this year, highlighting the sustaining pull of her franchises. The veteran manufacturer likewise is discovering brand-new outlets for her signature serial storytelling. Balaji’s long-lasting innovative collaboration with Netflix, revealed in 2015, marked a push to establish tasks throughout numerous formats. In September, she made another substantial relocation: a YouTube collaboration for 5 premium scripted programs covering 200 episodes. Kapoor will lead the innovative instructions, with Balaji maintaining the underlying IP while tapping YouTube’s worldwide circulation and marketing organization– a smart growth that does not include giving up ownership of her stories.

M-K Kennedy

Handling Director Worldwide Television, StudioCanal (France)

Kennedy has actually developed a profession around taking regional tv production worldwide. A local of Bucaramanga, Colombia, she started in Washington, D.C., producing the Hispanic Heritage Awards before relocating to Telemundo, where she assisted develop Telemundo Studios Mexico. After 7 years at Universal Television and UCP in Los Angeles, she signed up with Netflix, where she developed production groups throughout Latin America and Europe and supervise significant local-language productions consisting of Cash Heist Dark Lupin and All Quiet on the Western FrontIn 2015, Kennedy organized StudioCanal’s recently restructured Worldwide Television department, managing the French giant’s worldwide television drama slate that consists of a number of film-to-series spinoffs drawing from StudioCanal’s large library. There’s A Prophet (from the 2009 Jacques Audiard jail drama), Apollo Has Fallen (based upon the Gerard Butler action franchise) and Army of Shadowsa reimagining of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 movie about the French resistance in World War II that is set to star Paddy Considine, Kit Harington, Susan Sarandon and Olivia Colman.

Minyoung Kim

VP Content, Netflix, APAC (leaving out India)

For the executive who greenlit Squid GameNetflix’s many enjoyed series of perpetuity, the bar for an excellent year is uncommonly high. Kim, who is approaching her 10th anniversary at Netflix in November and has actually supervised the bulk of the banner’s output in the Asia-Pacific area, has yet another worldwide hit to commemorate. Korea’s Teach You a Lesson just recently signed up with the banner’s all-time leading 10 for non-English tv. According to Netflix, APAC material now represents over half the titles in its worldwide non-English Top 10, up from about 30 percent in 2021, while yearly around the world watching hours for material from the area have actually quadrupled because 2019. This year’s slate stretches from Thailand’s The Evil Lawyer to Japan’s Plastic Beauty and Australia’s My Brilliant Career along with a push into live shows with occasions consisting of BTS: The Comeback and High-rise building Live“We’re constantly searching for the magic of something unforeseen that records the creativity and gets individuals delighted,” she states. “Doing that one or two times is effort, doing that continuously throughout 9 APAC nations suffices to offer anybody sleeping disorders. When we get it right, it’s the finest sensation in the world.”

Anna Marsh

CEO, StudioCanal; Member of Canal+ Board; Canal+ Group Chief Content Officer (France)

Marsh has actually invested more than twenty years constructing a worldwide profession in movie and tv sales, circulation and production, increasing from global sales at Tele Images and TF1 International to the top of leading French significant StudioCanal in 2019. She signed up with the management board of moms and dad Canal+ in 2022, ending up being deputy CEO, and is now likewise primary content officer for the whole group, putting her unquestionably amongst the most effective and prominent figures in worldwide home entertainment with a remit that extends beyond television to awards-worthy movie theater, including this year’s fall celebration favorites Elsinore with Andrew Scott and Danny Boyle’s Ink with Jack O’Connell. Under Marsh, StudioCanal has actually continued to broaden its European production and circulation footprint, taking a managing stake in Italian distributor/producer Lucky Red and Nordic clothing SAM Productions and, at the Canal+ level, signing a brand-new three-year collaboration with British pay television giant Sky that will see the business establish and co-finance a minimum of 2 exceptional English-language dramas a year. More detailed to home, Canal+ has actually revealed a French variation of Saturday Night Live set to release this year.

Carolyn McCall

CEO, ITV (U.K.)

Has anybody had a busier year than McCall? She worked out the most significant global television offer of the year– the 1.6 billion-pound( $2.12 billion)sale of ITV’s broadcasting and streaming organization to the Comcast-owned Sky– and dealt with the after-effects with cool-as-a-cucumber self-assurance. “The statement of the sale … was a specifying minute for ITV,”McCall stated on a call with reporters as the business revealed 2 percent income development in the very first half of the year. Unfazed by the possibility of regulative approval obstacles, McCall (who noted it was ITV who initiated the sale) and her group will be accountable for the most powerful British media group the U.K. has actually ever seen. Sky would get ITV’s networks and streaming companies (Media & & Entertainment )– consisting of the ITV channel portfolio and ITVX– while ITV Studios, the production clothing behind such franchises as Love Island Britain’s Got Talent and the Netflix struck Trick Me Onceis to be spun off as a standalone noted business, McCall has actually validated. “The competitors is relentless,” she stated at a Royal Television Society occasion in London in September. “It’s not simply larger; it’s likewise the financial investment. You have to invest in innovation. You’ve got to continue to buy AI. You’ve got to continue to purchase effectiveness and, most significantly, you’ve got to have adequate cash to continuously purchase material due to the fact that material is where it’s at. That’s what makes you all your cash.” She has actually definitely provided on her pledge considering that using up the post in 2018, when she swore to introduce a brand-new tactical vision– “more than television”– in a quote to assist ITV adjust to the quickly developing media landscape. Her experience covers the leading tasks at numerous of Britain’s leading companies, consisting of EasyJet and the Guardian Media Group.

Beverley McGarvey

President, Network 10 (Australia)

Twenty years after signing up with Network 10, McGarvey manages a portfolio extending from such free-to-air staples as MasterChef Australia to Paramount+’s complete slate of regional originals, consisting of NCIS: Sydney and the true-crime series Who the Hell Is Hamish? She states the business’s totally free streaming service is having its “greatest year yet,” while ingenious current collaborations with such brand names as LG and TikTok– the latter targeted at bringing brand-new audiences to Huge Brother — have actually started to provide fresh opportunities to audiences. Keeping Australian production feasible amidst increasing expenses and fragmenting audiences stays her top priority. “My obstacle is producing performances to keep financial investment streaming into our regional material,” she states. One program she wants she had made over the previous year? Disney+’s Competitors“I simply like the escapist, engaging juiciness of the stories,” she states.

Anne Mensah

VP Content, Netflix (U.K. )

Netflix has actually invested an eye-watering 4.45 billion pounds ($6 billion) in U.K. productions considering that 2020, developing more than 50,000 tasks while doing so. It’s not a stretch to state Mensah and her group have actually invested well– the buzziest jobs amongst the banner’s British television slate continue to overperform around the world, amongst them Heartstopper Teenage years Black Doves and The GentlemenWhich’s before you get to the Kate Winslet-Maxine Peake two-hander (The Unheardthe untitled Roald Dahl adjustment and the Barry Keoghan-led Leading Boy prequel.

Cathy Payne

CEO, Banijay Rights (U.K.)

This year, it was validated that Payne would be guiding the ship of Banijay Entertainment’s international circulation company following the $8 billion megamerger with All3Media. She’s stayed in her post as CEO of Banijay Rights, too, with the Aussie-born executive supervising the sales of such gigantic hits as Survivor Huge Brother and MasterChefin addition to Black Mirror and Peaky Blinders worldwide.

Kate Phillips

Chief Content Officer, BBC (U.K.)

Phillips’ prolonged BBC experience primed her for the CCO function at Britain’s leading broadcaster: She was director of unscripted from May 2022 and before that commissioned more than 500 hours of initial programs a year, consisting of the still enormously popular Strictly Come Dancing and The Graham Norton Show. Now, she’s accountable for all BBC network television and radio output. States Phillips, “I’m constantly considering how we reach audiences who are taking in media on many various platforms now while still keeping the attribution to the BBC.”

Lindsay Salt

Director of Drama, BBC (U.K.)

Salt is actually behind each and every single success out of the BBC’s leviathan drama department: Richard Gadd’s Child Reindeer follow-up, Half-Man; the long-awaited 2nd season of The Night Manager; and Sally Wainwright’s Riot WomenShe is likewise the commissioner on some impossibly big worldwide co-productions, consisting of the BBC and Netflix’s Lord of the Flies and the BritBox phenomenon The Other Bennet Sister (the most significant U.K. drama launch– throughout all platforms and banners– this whole year). This is however a portion of her work platforming initial voices, and Salt’s eye for smart storytelling keeps the BBC’s track record for eminence drama in good shape.

Monika Shergill

VP Content, Netflix (India)

Netflix’s 10th year in India has actually provided Shergill plenty to commemorate. According to the banner, India became its biggest factor to non-English movie seeing worldwide in the very first half of 2026, while the criminal activity thriller Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web ended up being the very first Indian series to launching at No. 1 on its international non-English television chart. Her slate’s breadth likewise is unequaled by worldwide business running in the nation, covering the military drama Operation Safed Sagarthe truth series Lock Upp: Sach Ya Sazaa and the Tamil movie Made in Korea“I’m proudest of the variety we’ve given audiences,” she states. Amidst moving seeing practices, she notes she’s focused most on the subtleties within India’s large viewership: “In a market as varied as ours, the obstacle isn’t scale; it’s uniqueness for various types of audiences.”

Christine Strobl

Program Director, ARD (Germany)

Strobl has actually invested her profession at the crossway of civil service broadcasting and German tv drama. A legal representative by training from an excellent household (her dad is conservative political icon Wolfgang Schäuble, previous president and longest-serving member of the German Parliament), Strobl signed up with local public broadcaster SWR in 1999 and increased through shows functions, ending up being head of the broadcaster’s movie and household shows in 2011. In 2012, she transferred to ARD subsidiary Degeto Film as handling director, where she managed the advancement, acquisition and co-production of fiction for the general public broadcaster and combated the channel managers to protect funding for the most pricey German drama of perpetuity: Babylon BerlinBacked by ARD and pay television network Sky, Babylon was an early example of Strobl’s push towards cross-channel cooperation, something she’s reached sports (ARD and banner Magenta shared rights to matches at this year’s World Cup) and home entertainment (the network is looking for a partner to sign up with forces, and share expenses, for the broadcast of the next Eurovision Song Contest. Her preferred non-ARD program of the year was Netflix’s German spy thriller Unknown“The story itself, with all its weaves, is the genuine star,” she states. “It’s precisely what German fiction can be: premium, remarkably directed and hence globally enticing.”

Karen Thorne-Stone

President and CEO, Ontario Creates(Canada)

As head of the Canadian province’s media financial investment firm, Thorne-Stone financial resources whatever from function movies to XR material. That function now suggests browsing market contraction and unpredictability and guaranteeing Hollywood manufacturers keep pertaining to Ontario for tax credits, regional skill and differed areas. “There is no end to the skill in our province and nation, and we have a remarkable capability to sustain development, tasks and financial investment if we keep an environment where developers and services can flourish,” she informs THR about her province remaining competitive with competing areas.

Jane Turton

Deputy CEO, Banijay Entertainment (U.K.)

Turton is getting in a brand-new chapter after guiding All3Media for a years as the business finished its $8 billion megamerger with Banijay this year to produce the indisputable indie production and circulation champ. The globe-spanning group with 130 production business throughout 25 nations boasts a content brochure that consists of The Traitors Huge Brother MasterChef Peaky Blinders and Midsomer MurdersThe offer marks completion of the All3Media brand name, however for Turton, it’s the start of a brand-new chapter. “Leading All3Media has actually been a big satisfaction and opportunity,” she stated after the merger closed in July, including that the mix of the 2 indie powerhouses would increase future chances “sometimes over,” uniting the capability to provide “fantastic programs established and produced by first-rate skill” with “the strength of an international supplier, a market-leading digital studio and a growing live occasions service.”

Kylie Watson-Wheeler

Senior VP and Managing Director, Disney Australia & & New Zealand/ head, ESPN APAC (Australia)

With The Artful Dodger in production on a 3rd season, Watson-Wheeler, amongst her lots of accomplishments, now has Disney+’s very first homegrown Australian streaming hit. She calls the renewal “an uncommon accomplishment and a strong marker of the program’s appeal both in your area and globally.” The veteran officer manages Disney’s Australia and New Zealand services and ESPN throughout Asia-Pacific. After bringing ESPN onto Disney+ in the 2 nations in 2015, she has another turning point to commemorate in 2026: the current effective launch of Disney+ with advertisements, the banner’s very first ad-supported tier in Asia-Pacific. “Our ad-tier momentum is strong, with continual acquisition development and strong engagement,” she states, indicating chances to draw in both marketers and cost-conscious audiences with the platform’s growing mix of live sports, Hulu programs and Disney’s deep library.

Profiles by Patrick Brzeski, Lily Ford, Scott Roxborough and Etan Vlessing.

This story appeared in the Oct. 7 concern of The Hollywood Reporter publication. Click on this link to subscribe