F.Y.I.

Global entertainment head new keynote at Screen Forever 2016

Keli Lee,  managing director of the international content and talent divisions at ABC Television Network and ABC Studios, has been revealed a s a new keynote at next month’s Screen Forever conference in Melbourne.

keli-lee-head-of-internatonal-content-and-talent-at-abc

The announcement

MEDIA RELEASE:

Monday 24 October 2016

ABC ENTERTAINMENT GROUP CONTENT AND TALENT HEAD KELI LEE (US) CONFIRMED FOR THE 2016 SCREEN FOREVER CONFERENCE, MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA 

 Screen Producers Australia in association with Film Victoria is delighted to announce Keli Lee, Managing Director of International Content & Talent for ABC Entertainment Group (ABCEG), as one of the keynote speakers for SCREEN FOREVER 2016, the premier conference for the screen industry in Australia.

Based in London, Ms. Lee leads the international content and talent divisions of ABC Television Network and ABC Studios, creating new opportunities for original content and talent, program formats and joint venture productions around the world. The Korean born Ms. Lee is a champion of diversity on screen, achieving highly successful critical and commercial outcomes.

In Ms. Lee’s former role as Executive Vice President of Talent and Casting, ABCEG, a position she held for more than a decade, Ms. Lee oversaw all talent and casting for ABC including multiple award winning series such as “Modern Family,” “Scandal,”, “Grey’s Anatomy,” “How to Get Away with Murder,” “Blackish,” “Fresh Off The Boat,” “American Crime,” and “Quantico.”

Under Ms. Lee’s decade of leadership, ABC received a total of 30 Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Acting Categories including Viola Davis’s historical Emmy Award in 2015 as the first African America actress to win Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama, and also 60 Golden Globe Nominations and five Golden Globe Awards in the acting categories.

Ms. Lee has been a leading force in the arena of diversity and spearheaded ABCEG’s efforts to bring greater inclusiveness to the screen, a strategy that led to domestic ratings success as well as expanded global viewership for the company. Keli Lee’s commitment to finding global talent also led her to conceptualize and create ABC Discovers, a series of landmark initiatives with a globally focused creative talent recruiting program that leverages technology to allow acting, writing and directing talent to submit their original content online. Winners of the program are offered training, mentorship, and capital in order to scale their skills. Past program participants include Academy Award winning actress Lupita Nyong’o of “12 Years A Slave,”, Golden Globe winner Gina Rodriguez of “Jane the Virgin,” Chadwick Boseman of “Marvel’s Black Panther” and Jesse Williams of “Grey’s Anatomy.”

“Keli Lee is an extraordinary talent who has combined exceptional business savvy and creativity while holding firm to her ideals of diversity on screen. There have been some great advances under her watch and we are delighted to have her in Australia where diversity on screen remains a strong issue,” said Matthew Deaner, CEO, Screen Producers Australia.

Ms. Lee is a former mentor to the Korean government’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism for KOCCA, the business development agency that develops cultural content to connect to US and worldwide markets. She serves on the boards of NATPE and Step Up, a nonprofit organisation that helps empower teen girls from under-resourced communities, and is a member of the 2014 Class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute. In 2015, Lee was named one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business”.

Keli Lee will deliver a Keynote speech at SCREEN FOREVER in Melbourne on Tuesday, 15 November, 3.30pm and will be involved in numerous other initiatives at SCREEN FOREVER.

SCREEN FOREVER

15 to 17 November 2016. Crown Conference Centre, Melbourne Australia.

Registrations now open at www.screenforever.org.au

@Screen_Producer / #SCREENFOREVER

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SCREEN FOREVER is one of the largest congregations of screen professionals in the southern hemisphere, providing a forum for discussion and debate on local and global trends, issues and challenges facing the business of screen production. Past keynote speakers include Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead, Aliens, The Terminator); Dana Brunetti (House of Cards); Emile Sherman (The King’s Speech, Top of the Lake); Sydney Pollack (Tootsie); Ted Hope (21 Grams), David Puttnam, Kt, CBE (The Mission), Jon Plowman (The Office), Matthew Weiner (Mad Men) and George Lucas (Star Wars)

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