Editor’s Letter: Why The WIE Issue Still Matters

THR‘s Women in Entertainment issue has always been a barometer of progress. When the power list debuted in 1992, one Hollywood executive joked that the only place she saw fewer women was on a football field. The landscape has changed dramatically since then. Women now run studios, networks, agencies and streaming platforms and oversee sports divisions. Back then, this magazine’s editors struggled to fill a list of 100 industry powerhouses. Now our biggest challenge is deciding (begrudgingly) whom to leave off.

But that progress has always come with an asterisk. An anonymous new THR survey of under-35 female execs tells the story. Fifty-nine percent of respondents say it’s easier to be a young woman in Hollywood than it was a decade ago; a majority say they feel supported by senior female leaders; and nearly half believe #MeToo has meaningfully changed the industry for the better. And yet, more than four out of five say they need to work harder than their male counterparts — a reminder of the chasm that still exists between “better” and “equal.”

The work of widening that circle extends beyond these pages. Our WIE mentorship program, created with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles, pairs high school girls from underserved communities with influential women in town. The program has helped send alums to Harvard, USC, UCLA, Columbia, Chapman and Loyola Marymount on full scholarships, many of them the first in their families to set foot on a college campus. If the Power 100 is the glossy barometer of how far Hollywood has come, these students are the clearest argument for where it needs to go next.

This year’s event honors Gwyneth Paltrow with the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, now in its 20th year, and Jennifer Lopez with the Equity in Entertainment Award. They join an extraordinary roster of past recipients who turned their careers into platforms for change, starting with the legendary studio chief for whom Paltrow’s award is named.

While women in Hollywood have achieved a kind of status that would have been hard to imagine in 1992, we’ll know that they’ve achieved true parity when it is obsolete. Because if power in this town were truly gender-neutral, the WIE Power 100 would be a charming relic instead of the most closely read list in Hollywood.

Maer Roshan,

Editor-in-Chief

@MaerRoshan

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THR Celebrates the WIE Class of 2025

The Mentees

Andrea John F. Kennedy High School

Angela City Honors High School

Audrey John F. Kennedy High School

Chloe Los Angeles High School of the Arts

Cierra John F. Kennedy High School

Danait Roybal Film and Television Magnet

Destiny Compton High School

Janae City Honors High School

Kayla Birmingham Community Charter High School

Kayleen Hamilton High School

Natalia Birmingham Community Charter High School

Oriana City Honors High School

Sandi Dominguez High School

Sophia John F. Kennedy High School

Stephanie Ánimo Watts College Prep

Stephany Compton High School

Tarada Birmingham Community Charter High School

Valerie Ánimo Inglewood Charter High School

And Now Their Mentors

Danielle Stokdyk

President of Levitan Productions, executive producer of Nobody Wants This

Dr. Eve Glazier

President of UCLA Health Faculty Practice

Ali Woodruff

Senior U.S. programming executive at Apple TV

Jenna Santoianni

President of TV at MRC

Meredith Roberts

Executive vp, CEO of Disney Television Animation

Bree Frank

Senior production executive at Amazon-MGM Studios’ Evolution Media

Sumi Parekh

Executive director of Group Effort Initiative

Myiea Coy

Senior vp television at Confluential Media

Dana Lipman

General counsel at the Entertainment Industry Foundation

Jody Gerson

CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group

Megan Byce

Head of public figure and creator partnerships at Meta

Adia Matthews

Vice president of partnership marketing at Hulu

Lauren Townsend

Executive vp corporate communications at Fox

Ivette Rodriguez

President and founder of American Entertainment Marketing

Nicole Martin

Legal program director at the Entertainment Industry Foundation, Know Your Rights Camp

Michelle Weiner

Co-head of CAA’s books division

Ginger Chan

Chief marketing officer at WME 

Laura Roenick

Partner and senior vp people, United Talent Agency

This story appeared in the Dec. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.