the new guard

@Work
YOUR GET-AHEAD GUIDE FOR CAREER, STYLE & SUCCESS
HOLLYWOOD’S
TRIPLE THREAT
RASHIDA
JONES
THE ACTRESS,
WRITER, AND
PRODUCER
STEPS INTO THE
SPOTLIGHT
THE
NEW
GUARD
50
BADASS
INNOVATORS,
MOGULISTAS,
AND SHOT
CALLERS
TOP $550,
PANTS $695,
Sportmax;
EARRING
Jones’ own.
The NEW GUARD
SO LONG,
MAKE WAY FOR
TINSELTOWN’S
NEW SHOT
CALLERS. A
GENERATION
OF WHIPSMART,
GUTSY YOUNG
WOMEN IS
REWRITING THE
RULES OF THE
GAME IN TV
AND FILM. THEY
ARE DIVERSE,
OUTSPOKEN, AND
UNAPOLOGETIC
IN THEIR MISSION
TO SEIZE THE
SPOTLIGHT AND
SHATTER SOME
GLASS CEILINGS.
SMASH AWAY,
LADIES
Edited by
LE A G OLDMAN
Photographs by
DA N MONI CK
112 M AR IE C L A IR E .C OM November 2014
B OY S ’
CLUB
A
VANIT Y SHINGLE, for the
uninitiated, is a production
company overseen by a
famous actor that gives a studio first dibs on whatever
crazy ideas he or she happens
to conjure up en route to the gym or day
spa. It’s a venerable Hollywood status
symbol—right up there with an infinity
pool or a signature fragrance—and an easy
way for a studio to keep a prized talent content and engaged.
Which is why the announcement last
year that Rashida Jones—the lovely, unassuming, eminently sensible actress best
known for playing lovely, unassuming, eminently sensible characters on The Office and
Parks and Recreation—had signed an agreement with Warner Bros. to develop television comedies and dramas was met with the
industry equivalent of a gentle pat on
the head. The trades dutifully made note
of the deal, and everyone promptly moved on.
Only this was no vanity project. Jones,
38, and her partner and best friend, Will
McCormack, had already cowritten the
smart 2012 indie anti-romance Celeste &
Jesse Forever, starring Jones, and Warner
Bros. saw real potential. Together, the pair
founded their own production outfit,
dubbed Le Train Train (slang for “the daily
grind” in French), which is currently in the
midst of a major Hollywood hot streak. Of
the nine programs they’ve pitched to networks so far, all have been snapped up for
further development. True, only a precious
few may make it past the pilot stage, but the
frenzy of sales represents an unheard-of batting average for a fledgling company. On
October 2, their first series, the rom-com
A to Z, premiered on NBC in a cherished
Thursday-night time slot. They’ve got two
more shows with solid chances of debuting
early next year.
Jones is characteristically modest about
the feat. “We’ve been really, really lucky,” she
FASHION EDITOR: SEAN KNIGHT. HAIR: SUNNIE BROOK FOR HEAD & SHOULDERS AT CELESTINE AGENCY. MAKEUP: VANESSA SCALI FOR LANCÔME AT TRACEY MATTINGLY
HOLLYWOOD
RASHIDA
JONES
EXECUTIVE
PRODUCER
OF NBC’S
A TO Z, STAR
OF TBS’ ANGIE
TRIBECA
Rashida Jones at
the offices of her
production
company, Le Train
Train, on the
Warner Bros. lot.
Shirt, $890,
skirt, $1,100,
shoes, $1,495,
Altuzarra; cuff,
price upon
request, David
Yurman.
November 2014 M A R I EC L AI R E . C O M 113
The NEW GUARD
Later, while attending Harvard, she
fell into a depression and turned to the
performing arts for relief, writing for
the college’s musical comedy club,
Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and appearing in a production of For Colored
Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/
When the Rainbow Is Enuf. After that,
she was hooked.
Her success was hardly a sure thing.
“I wanted to be noticed, I wanted to be
respected, and I felt jealous when other
people had the opportunity,” Jones confesses. “But I’m so happy that it took
so long for anybody to really give me a
long-term job, because it made me
appreciate what it’s like to be an out-ofwork actor.”
It also imbued in her an interest in
exerting more control over her career.
“As an actor, you’re kind of at the bottom
JONES AND HER PARTNER ARE IN THE MIDST OF A
MAJOR HOLLYWOOD HOT STREAK. OF THE NINE
PROGRAMS THEY’VE PITCHED TO NETWORKS, ALL
HAVE BEEN SNAPPED UP FOR DEVELOPMENT, WHICH
IS UNHEARD OF FOR A FLEDGLING COMPANY.
Jones is developing
shows with more
well-rounded
depictions of
women.
of the pile. You rely on everybody else to
allow you to do what you do.” That’s why,
though she stars in the title role of Steve
Carell’s police satire Angie Tribeca, which
premieres on TBS early next year, she’s
wary about relying on acting as her primary source of income. “The business is
tough on women,” she says. “I don’t want
to think of the way I look as some commodity that’s slipping away.”
The sentiment is, perhaps, a more diplomatic reproach of her industry—and
celebrities who exploit their sex appeal to
get ahead—than the comments she made
last year on Twitter, when she called out
certain unnamed pop icons for basically
letting it all hang out: “This week’s celeb
news takeaway: she who comes closest to
showing the actual inside of her vagina is
most popular,” she wrote, tacking on the
hashtag: #stopactinglikewhores.
The backlash was intense. Jones was
accused of sanctimony and “slut shaming.” But she remains unrepentant. “Let
it be said: I believe in a woman’s right to
express her sexuality … but are you
really being empowered by your sexuality, or do you just want to be liked, and
is it just an easy way to get attention?”
she asks. When it’s pointed out that former schoolmates like Kardashian owe
their celebrity in part to sex tapes, she
insists she doesn’t blame them for it. “It’s
not their fault that they’re famous
because of it,” she says. “My problem is
putting them in the same category with
anybody who has worked their asses off
to cultivate their talent. It just makes me
sad. Why are we so obsessed with socialites and girls who are amateur sex-tape
stars? Can we also be obsessed with
women who have changed the world
and are really, really smart?”
Jones’ goal is to inject more nuanced
portrayals of women into the zeitgeist.
Like her charming NBC series A to Z, a
deftly plotted chronicle of a blossoming
love affair between Cristin Milioti (How I
Met Your Mother) and Ben Feldman (Mad
Men). “It’s like every woman in a movie
has to be perfectly adorable, and her life
is a mess … and only when a man comes
in does everything really fall into place,”
she says. “I think the more iterations of a
woman that exist, the better. Even if
they’re bad, if they’re good, if it’s ugly,
if it’s messy—it just is better for everyone
to see all of it.” —Aaron Gell
Jacket, $1,095,
dress, $575, Band
of Outsiders; shoes,
$750, Giuseppe
Zanotti Design.
114 M A R IE C L AIR E .C OM
Alonzo on the
Los Angeles set
of her ABC sitcom,
Cristela, which
the network
initially passed on.
CRISTELA
ALONZO
CREATOR AND
STAR OF ABC’S
CRISTELA
ALONZO: HAIR: PAVY OLIVAREZ FOR BUMBLE AND BUMBLE. MAKEUP: DANIELLE SAUNDERS RUSH
says. “We have a show on the air, and
that’s insane. It never happens. I think we
surpassed expectations, which now, of
course, makes our job a little bit harder.”
In a town crowded with overprivileged
scions, Jones is exceedingly mindful
about surpassing expectations. Her
mother is Mod Squad actress Peggy
Lipton; her father is legendary producer
and composer Quincy Jones, who also
executive-produced The Fresh Prince of
Bel-Air. Jones attended the elite Buckley
School in Sherman Oaks, California—her
schoolmates included Kim Kardashian,
Paris Hilton, and Nicole Richie—where
she stood out for her academic diligence
and participation. “I was in every activity,” she recalls. “I got really good grades;
I was a mathlete. I wouldn’t say I have
mastery in any one thing, but I’m pretty
good at a bunch of stuff.”
Coat, $1,080, Marina
Rinaldi; dress, $395,
Theory; belt, $40, Ann
Taylor; bracelets, from
$3,450 each, Bulgari;
tights, $35, Wolford.
H
ERE’S A SECRET trail-
blazers don’t often share:
Breaking barriers usually
requires bending a few
rules. Just ask 35-year-old
stand-up comic Cristela
Alonzo, who scored her own eponymous
sitcom on ABC even after the network
initially declined to shoot the script it had
commissioned based on her life as a firstgeneration Mexican-American. Alonzo
took the kill fee they paid her and proceeded anyway, shooting a bare-bones
episode on the set of Tim Allen’s ABC
sitcom Last Man Standing, executiveproduced by Becky Clements, who’s also
a big fan of Alonzo. “I was an unknown
name; I knew the odds were against me,”
Alonzo recalls. “We went a little rogue.”
Alonzo and Clements presented
the video about a Mexican-American law
student and her traditional family to ABC
brass, who were so impressed that they
reversed course and green-lit the series.
Clements, now an executive producer of
Cristela, compares the program to The
Cosby Show and Roseanne. “Those shows
had very specific winning people at the
center of them. And I just recognized that
in her,” she says of Alonzo.
Alonzo’s star turn on a prime-time network sitcom is a very big deal. Except for
Ugly Betty’s America Ferrera and The
CW’s recently debuted Jane The Virgin,
adapted from a Venezuelan telenovela,
Latinas—even superstars like Sofia
Vergara and Eva Longoria—have largely
been relegated to ensemble roles. Alonzo
is keenly aware of what that means. “I
always feel like I give a face to a group
that [audiences] are not familiar with.
And when they get that face and they like
me, it’s easier for them to get everything,
get the culture a little bit better,” she says.
The youngest of four children—her
mother left an abusive husband while
pregnant with Cristela—Alonzo grew up
in the Texas-border town of San Juan.
“My mother ended up finding this abandoned diner where she moved and had
me. The first seven, eight years of my life,
my family lived as squatters in that
diner,” says Alonzo. “As a kid, I really
wanted to have my own show. But when
you grow up in poverty, people tell you
nothing is possible. So I kind of gave up
on that dream.”
Alonzo eventually answered a want
ad for an office manager at a Dallas comedy club. Brassy and quick with a joke,
she soon found herself onstage, where
the laughs came easily. She’d found her
calling. A little over a year later, at age 24,
she moved to Los Angeles, where she
scraped by touring and honing her material. But the longer she spent on the road,
the more profane her material became.
By 2008, she realized she’d strayed far
outside her comfort zone. “I grew up in
a very Catholic household,” she explains.
“We were pretty conservative. I found
myself doing raunchier jokes than I
wanted to do.”
For a year and a half, she cleaned up
her act. Her more mainstream material
helped land her a spot on Conan, and
development deals soon followed. While
early reviews for Cristela have been
mixed, critics have praised Alonzo.
(“Could not be more lovable,” gushed a
reviewer for E! Entertainment.) And
though current trend favors edgier, singlecamera shows these days—like Veep and
The Mindy Project, for example—Alonzo
is adamant that a traditional network
multi-camera sitcom, with its studio
audiences and laugh tracks, is the ideal
way to capture her message. “I want this
show to be seen by everybody,” she says
of Cristela. “I can’t tell a story about a
working-class family on a premium channel that you have to pay to get.”
She learned the hard way that authenticity is a prerequisite for success:
“Regardless of whether [the show] fails
or succeeds, I have to do it my way.”
—Karen Schwartz
ALONZO’S STAR TURN ON A PRIME-TIME NETWORK
SITCOM IS A VERY BIG DEAL. LATINAS—EVEN
SUPERSTARS LIKE SOFIA VERGARA—HAVE
LARGELY BEEN RELEGATED TO ENSEMBLE ROLES.
November 2014 M A R I E C L AI R E . C O M 115
JENNIFER
LEE
SCREENWRITER
AND CODIRECTOR
OF DISNEY’S
FROZEN
C
OULD ANY contemporary
film better epitomize the
term “crossover hit” than
Disney’s Frozen? This year’s
Oscar-winning juggernaut
about a Snow Queen and
her puckish sister has to date raked in
$1.2 billion at the box office, becoming
the highest-grossing animated film in history. For Jennifer Lee, its effervescent
43-year-old writer and codirector (and
the first woman to helm a Disney animated studio feature), the film served as
a catapult into the elite club of
überdirectors—Steven Spielberg and
George Lucas among them—who have
presided over billion-dollar films.
Lee, who directed Frozen along with
Chris Buck, is among a new breed of
film influentials taking their cues from
television, where showrunners frequently assume the role of lead writer.
“You can’t just do a straightforward
story anymore,” she explains about the
process of scripting a movie. “People get
bored. You have to add layers to it. It has
to be evocative. I think that creates a
need for a very strong relationship
between the writing and the directing,
like in TV.”
Born and raised in Rhode Island, Lee
graduated with an English degree from
the University of New Hampshire, then
headed to New York, where she found
work designing audiobook and DVD
covers. “I was definitely one of those
liberal-arts kids who didn’t know what
I wanted to do,” she says. “It literally
took me until I was 28 to realize I should
do films.”
After she graduated from Columbia
University’s film school, former classmate
Phil Johnston asked her to work with him
on the script for Wreck-It Ralph. It
was her work on that animated film that
Sweater, $1,345,
Christopher Kane; jeans,
$274, Citizens of Humanity;
bracelet, $2,200, David
Yurman; glasses, Lee’s own.
116 M A R IE C L AIR E .C OM November 2014
convinced Buck to give her the longgestating Frozen to help rewrite. Lee’s contributions were significant. She and Buck
recast the script, originally pitched as a
conventional battle of good vs. evil (Elsa
was portrayed as a villain), to instead
reflect a struggle between fear and love. “It
was like, Can’t we do something a little
more dynamic and three-dimensional?”
Lee recalls. “We said, What would it feel
like to be her? What would it feel like to
finally be free, but have the weight of the
world on her?”
Soon after turning in the script, Lee
was named director, alongside Buck.
Lee says the new title gave her more freedom to shape the look of the film. “I was
nervous about learning animation production,” she concedes. “I didn’t go to
school for it. But it was actually far more
organic than I thought. I was the one in
the room who knew exactly what was
going on in the characters’ heads.”
Next up for Lee: the spring release of
a Frozen short, as well as a screenplay
for a live-action adaptation of Madeleine
L’Engle’s 1962 classic, A Wrinkle in
Time. “It’s such a hard book to do, which
is why it has taken 30 years,” she says.
“I’m terrified and excited.”
As for her pioneering first-womandirector status, Lee sees it as a harbinger
of bigger changes. “I’m surrounded by
women,” she explains. “On Wreck-It
Ralph, half the story crew was women.
On Frozen, some of our lead animators
were women. Hopefully animation will
lead the industry. See! Female directors—
they do well!” —K.S.
FROZEN CATAPULTED LEE INTO THE ELITE CLUB
OF ÜBERDIRECTORS—STEVEN SPIELBERG AND
GEORGE LUCAS AMONG THEM—WHO HAVE
PRESIDED OVER BILLION-DOLLAR FILMS.
Lee helped overhaul
the script to Frozen,
which had originally
cast Elsa as a
conventional villain.
LEE: HAIR & MAKEUP: SUNNIE BROOK FOR HEAD & SHOULDERS AT CELESTINE AGENCY
The NEW GUARD
NEW
GU A R D
Hollywood Multi-Hyphenates
the
GUARDE
R
MEGAN ELLISON
R
E
R
TU
NING
N
GUARD
E
R
120 M A R IE C L AIR E .C OM November 2014
The press-averse daughter
of tech billionaire Larry
Ellison last year became
the first woman in
history to score two
Best Picture Oscar
nominations in the same
year, for producing Her
and American Hustle.
(All told, Annapurna
racked up 17 noms last
year alone.) Next up: the
Oscar-buzzed Foxcatcher,
starring Steve Carell
and Channing Tatum.
EW
ower is fast becoming a
woman’s game. Used to be
it was exercised by monied
men on golf courses and in
oak-paneled board rooms.
(How dated is that?!)
These days, true clout is
measured by who you know
and, more important, what
you do with those contacts.
And nobody knows how to
network better than we
do. Want to spot a real power
broker? Start here, with the
2nd-annual New Guard list
of the most connected
women in America
28, PRODUCER,
FOUNDER, ANNAPURNA
PICTURES
(@MEGANEELLISON)
CINDY HOLLAND
45, VP, ORIGINAL
CONTENT, NETFLIX
Having notched zeitgeisttapping hits House of
Cards and Orange Is the
36, SVP, ORIGINAL
PROGRAMMING AND
DEVELOPMENT, COMEDY
CENTRAL (@BAPOSCH)
The former assistant to
Saturday Night Live
creator Lorne Michaels is
now a comedy talentspotter extraordinaire in
her own right, overseeing
development of East
Coast–based original
programming for the
Viacom-owned network.
Among Posch’s big credits:
ratings favorite Inside
Amy Schumer and the
Amy Poehler executiveproduced Broad City.
New Black (the second
season was Netflix’s
most-watched original
series to date), Holland,
the Los Gatos streaming
giant’s programming
guru, is turning her
sights to comedy. She’s
green-lit a talk show for
Chelsea Handler, a
comedy series produced
by Judd Apatow, and a
sitcom from Friends
cocreator Marta
Kauffman starring Lily
Tomlin and Jane Fonda.
HANNAH
MINGHELLA
35, COPRESIDENT
OF PRODUCTION ,
COLUMBIA PICTURES
As gatekeeper at one of
Hollywood’s most
venerable studios,
Minghella presided over
Oscar contenders
Captain Phillips and
American Hustle, and
logged stints at Harvey
Weinstein’s Miramax
Films and Sony Pictures
under cochair Amy
Pascal. Next up: a
rumored all-female
reboot of Ghostbusters.
SHONDA RHIMES
44, WRITER, PRODUCER,
FOUNDER, SHONDALAND
(@SHONDARHIMES)
MINGHELLA AND BELL: COURTESY OF SUBJECTS ; ALL OTHERS: GETTY
RNING N
BROOKE POSCH
WATTS: GETTY; RHIMES: COURTESY OF SUBJECT; POSCH: COURTESY OF COMEDY CENTRAL
TU
W
E
E
R
H O L LY W O O D
SHOT CALLERS
2.
1.
Arguably TV’s most
powerful showrunner now
owns Thursday nights on
ABC with her trifecta of hit
dramas, Grey’s Anatomy,
Scandal, and the most
recent How to Get Away
With Murder. She’s also the
rare behind-the-scenester
with her own celebrity
profile—watch for her
cameo on NBC’s The Mindy
Project this season.
BRIE
LARSON
25, ACTRESS,
FILMMAKER
One of the most
prolific actresses in
the game, with six
films due out next
year, she costars
opposite Mark
Wahlberg in The
Gambler, the muchGambler
buzzed-about
addiction drama.
BRIT
MARLING
31, ACTRESS, WRITER,
PRODUCER
(@BRITMARLING)
44, PRESIDENT OF
PRODUCTION, 20TH
CENTURY FOX
Fox’s resident hitmaker
shepherded a slew of
4.
JENNY
SLATE
29, WRITER, PRODUCER,
YOUTUBE STAR
(@ISSARAE)
The creator of the hit web
Look for the indie
series The Misadventures
screen queen in the
of Awkward Black Girl
upcoming Civil War
is teaming up with The
drama The Keeping
Daily Show vet Larry
Room and the Terrence
Wilmore to develop a
Malick–produced
half-hour comedy for
Abe Lincoln biopic,
HBO. Her first book—a
The Better Angels.
collection of funny essays—
is out in February.
blockbusters including
X-Men: Days of Future
Past, The Other Woman,
and Dawn of the Planet of
the Apes. (Combined
box-office haul: $1.6 billion
worldwide.) She’s credited
with coaxing überdirector
David Fincher to direct
this fall’s gripping
adaptation of the Gillian
Flynn best-seller Gone Girl.
CONTENT
QUEENS
prestigious post heading up
digital strategy at The
Washington Post to start a
news venture with Beltwayblogging wunderkind Ezra
Klein. The site is now part
of the well-funded Vox
Media empire (SB Nation,
The Verge, Curbed).
35, COFOUNDER,
EXECUTIVE EDITOR &
SENIOR PRODUCT
MANAGER, VOX.COM
(@MELISSABELL)
Bell joined the journalism
digirati earlier this
year when she left her
32, ACTRESS,
COMIC, AUTHOR
(@JENNYSLATE)
Last summer’s
Obvious Child star
appears in the
FX series Married
and is reportedly
developing
a full-length film
of her Marcel
the Shell character.
THE INNER
CIRCLE
79%
Of New Guard
members currently
have a mentor.
LIZ GANNES
31, SENIOR EDITOR,
RE/CODE
(@LIZGANNES)
MELISSA BELL
EMMA WATTS
3.
ISSA RAE
The well-sourced former
scribe for Red Herring,
Gigaom, and AllThingsD
is now scoring scoops for
Re/code, the Kara Swisher–
Walt Mossberg tech news
blog. Last summer, Gannes
was first to the gate with
news of Google’s Sergey
Brin’s split from wife
Anne Wojcicki.
63%
Currently mentor
a colleague
or underling.
56%
Say mentors have
been instrumental
in their careers.
November 2014 M A R I E C L AI R E . C O M 121
The NEW GUARD
CONTENT
Q U E E N S ( C O N T. )
KELLY
KRAUSE
32, PUBLICIST,
SXSW INTERACTIVE
(@KELLJOKRAUSE)
Can’t score a seat at
one of SXSW’s
standing-room-only
panels? Thank Krause,
who liaises with A-list
tech firms and media
outlets to craft and
curate the influential
festival’s must-see
keynotes and events.
Among her gets: Nasty
Gal’s Sophia Amoruso,
Cory Booker, and
Ray Kurzweil.
SARAH LACY
38, FOUNDER, CEO &
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF,
PANDODAILY
(@SARAHCUDA)
Three years ago, the
former TechCrunch
editor raised $2.5
million from Silicon
Valley heavies like
PayPal’s Peter Thiel
and Zappos’ Tony
Hsieh—while on
maternity leave—to
launch her must-read
tech blog. Critics say
she’s a shill for
investors, but love
her or hate her,
there’s no denying
her insider status.
ALICIA
MENENDEZ
31, HOST OF
FUSION’S ALICIA
MENENDEZ TONIGHT
(@ALICIAMENENDEZ)
The former cohost of
SiriusXM Cristina
Radio’s Power Play
and host of HuffPost
Live, Menendez was
tapped last year to
anchor her own
evening news and
politics show on
Fusion, the new
youth-focused
cable partnership
between ABC and
Univision.
SOCIAL ANIMALS
92%
ON
Facebook
STEPHANIE
RUHLE
38, MANAGING
EDITOR,
BLOOMBERG TV/
EDITOR-AT-LARGE ,
BLOOMBERG
NEWS (@SRUHLE)
The Wall Street
veteran who logged
14 years at Deutsche
Bank and Credit
Suisse now hosts
Bloomberg’s Market
Makers, where she’s
taking on CNBC’s
morning business
roundup Squawk
Box. Claim to fame:
so plugged-in, she
broke the news of
the London Whale,
the JPMorgan
Chase trader at the
center of the bank’s
mega-loss in 2012.
92%
ON
Twitter
84%
ON
Instagram
65%
ON
LinkedIn
27%
ON
Snapchat
1.
JESSICA
ALBA
33, COFOUNDER, THE
HONEST COMPANY
(@JESSICAALBA)
Alba’s nontoxic baby
product line raised
$70 million in
funding this summer.
That puts its value at
over $1 billion.
2.
BRIT MORIN
28, FOUNDER & CEO,
BRIT & CO (@BRIT)
The self-proclaimed
Martha Stewart of
Silicon Valley runs an
online DIY empire,
backed by Yahoo’s
Marissa Mayer and
former Apple exec Allison
Johnson, among others.
122 MAR IE C L A IR E .C O M November 2014
3.
EMILY WEISS
29, CEO &
CREATIVE DIRECTOR,
INTO THE GLOSS
(@INTOTHEGLOSS)
The ultra-influential
beauty blogger boasts
a collaboration with
Warby Parker and her
own upcoming beauty
brand, Glossier.
4.
5.
JULIA
HARTZ
RUZWANA
BASHIR
Her online-ticketing
site has issued
more than 200 million
tickets worldwide
and counting.
The Fulbright Scholar
founded this travelbooking site with
funding from Google’s
Eric Schmidt and
Twitter’s Jack Dorsey.
34, COFOUNDER &
PRESIDENT,
EVENTBRITE
(@JULIAHARTZ)
31, FOUNDER & CEO,
PEEK.COM
(@RUZWANA )
ALBA, BASHIR, HARTZ, AND WEISS: GETTY ; ALL OTHERS: COURTESY OF SUBJECTS
A-List Entrepeneurs
The NEW GUARD
Valley VIPs
S TA R
DEAL MAKERS
1.
J
JESSE
DRAPER
30, CEO, VALLEY GIRL INC.
(@JESSEDRAPER)
LORINE
PENDLETON
39, HEAD OF NORTH
AMERICAN CONTENT
PARTNERSHIPS,
GOOGLE/YOUTUBE
If you’re a media outfit
with a presence on
YouTube, odds are
good you’ve hashed
out the terms with the
Harvard Business
School graduate, who’s
cut deals with all the
biggies—NBC, CBS,
Discovery Networks
International, and Vice
to name just a few;
the former head of
business development
for MTV Music &
Logo was recently
appointed to the board
of American Apparel.
6.
44, DIRECTOR OF
BUSINESS
DEVELOPMENT,
DENTONS
(@LORINEPENDLETON)
2.
LINDSE
LINDSEY
GREEN
30, VP,
SKDKNICKERBOCKER
(@LINDSEYMGREEN)
A former entertainment
lawyer who brokered
deals for Spike Lee
and Stevie Wonder,
she’s now an angel
investor in womenand minority-run
ventures. She sits
on the boards of the
National Black
Programming
Consortium, which
finances AfricanAmerican programming
to air on PBS, and
WomenLEAD, an
online mentoring
platform. She also
helped organize
TEDxHarlem.
The in-the-know tech
publicist reps a slew
of notable New York
startups like Of a
Kind and Bustle.
3.
ELLEN LEV
LEVY
5.
45, MANAGING DIRECTOR,
SILICON VALLEY CONNECT
(@ELLENLEVY)
Dubbed a “superconnector” by Fast
Company, she’s sat on
Company
more than 50 boards over
the course of her career.
J
JESSICA
LIVINGSTON
43, FOUNDING PARTNER,
Y COMBINATOR
(@FOUNDERSATWORK)
1.
It’s easier to get into
Harvard than her startup
accelerator, which accepts
just 3 percent of 6,000
applicants every year.
5.
ERIN
MCPHERSON
46, CHIEF CONTENT
OFFICER, MAKER
STUDIOS
(@ERIN_MCPHERSON)
Yahoo’s former video
strategy guru last year
jumped to Maker
Studios, one of
YouTube’s biggest
video creators and
distributors, where she
oversees content for
more than 55,000
channels that generate
over 8.5 billion views
monthly. Among her
projects: a comedy
series by Ben Stiller and
a collaboration with
Disney on the next Star
Wars installment.
J
JANE
MCGONIGAL
DANA SETTLE
The former Lehman
Brothers banker
opened up the West
Coast office of this
venture capital firm
at a time when few
paid attention to the
nascent Los Angeles
digital scene.
Among her big bets:
early investments
in AwesomenessTV
(sold to DreamWorks),
Maker Studios
(sold to Disney),
and Trunk Club (sold
to Nordstrom).
124 M A R IE C L AIR E .C OM November 2014
36, GAME DESIGNER
(@AVANTGAME)
7.
42, FOUNDING
PARTNER,
GREYCROFT
PARTNERS
(@DSETTLE)
The alternate-realitygame pioneer founded
Gameful, a network for
game developers.
2.
6.
BRITT
MORGANSAKS
35, HEAD OF ARTIST
SERVICES, NORTH
AMERICA, SPOTIFY
(@BMORGANSAKS
(@BMORGANSAKS)
The longtime Sony/ATV
record exec is now Spotify’s
artist ambassador.
7.
3.
2
4.
4.
KATIE
J
JACOBS
STANTON
44, VP GLOBAL MEDIA,
TWITTER (@KATIES)
The go-to for media
outlets looking to partner
with Twitter.
DRAPER: GETTY ; STANTON: AP IMAGES ; PENDLETON: PHOTO BY ERIC WONG ; LEVY: PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER MICHEL ; ALL OTHERS: COURTESY OF SUBJECTS
LAURA LEE
The former Nickelodeon
kid star is the creator and
host of buzzy web series
The Valley Girl Show
Show.
The NEW GUARD
POLITICAL
POWERHOUSES
PENNY
ABEYWARDENA
36, COMMISSIONER,
NYC MAYOR’S
OFFICE FOR
INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIRS
(@PABEYWARDENA)
The former Clinton
Global Initiative exec was
recently tapped by
Hizzoner Bill de Blasio
to liaise between the
city, diplomats, and the
State Department.
ON
THE
GO
69%
of New Guarders
travel at least
once a month, if
not more.
21%
5
Prefer coffee
meetings over
breakfast,
lunch, or dinner
meetings.
New Guarders
logged 100,000
miles or more
last year.
Fashion +
Beauty All-Stars
1.
LAURE
HERIARD
DUBREUIL
37, CEO & COFOUNDER,
THE WEBSTER
(@LAUREHD_)
She runs The Webster in
Miami, one of the most
influential fashion boutiques
in the U.S.
6.
2.
1.
CASSANDRA
HU
HUYSENTRUYT
GRE
GREY
37, FOUNDER & CEO,
VIOLET GREY (@MMEGEY)
Her Melrose Place outpost
and website is a must-stop
for Hollywood makeup
artists and celebrities.
3.
CAROL LIM
ASHLEY ETIENNE
36, WHITE
HOUSE CABINET
COMMUNICATIONS
DIRECTOR, SPECIAL
ASSISTANT TO THE
PRESIDENT
With business partner
Humberto Leon, she runs the
trend-setting fashion hot spot
with locations in NYC, L.A.,
London, and Tokyo.
5.
As liaison between
the White House and
federal agencies, the
former Nancy Pelosi
spokesperson has
cultivated a formidable
reputation as Obama’s
bad-news fixer, helping
craft responses to
Benghazi and the botched
Obamacare rollout.
4.
3.
TOMOKO
OGURA
32, SENIOR FASHION
DIRECTOR, BARNEYS
NEW YORK
(@BARNEYSNY)
She scouts up-and-coming
designers and trends for
the fashion powerhouse.
5.
RACHNA
SHAH
39, EVP, KCD
(@RACHNASAYS)
Shah boasts one of the most
coveted client rosters in the
business, handling PR,
digital, and event strategy
for Marc Jacobs and
Givenchy, among others.
FERIAL GOVASHIRI
6.
DASHA
ZHUKOVA
31, PERSONAL AIDE ,
PRESIDENT
BARACK OBAMA
Gatekeeper to the Leader of
the Free World. Among her
duties: managing his
schedule. Nobody gets to
see POTUS without her OK.
126 MAR IE C L A IR E .C O M November 2014
33, EDITOR IN CHIEF,
GARAGE
4.
2.
The fashion It girl has
corralled A-list artists like
Jeff Koons for Garage
cover treatments; she also
founded a contemporary
art museum in Moscow.
GREY: AP IMAGES ; ETIENNE, HERIARD DUBREUIL, LIM, OGURA, SHAH AND ZHUKOVA: GETTY ; ALL OTHERS: COURTESY OF SUBJECTS
39, CEO & CO-OWNER ,
OPENING CEREMONY &
CO-CREATIVE DIRECTOR,
KENZO
(@OPENINGCEREMONY)
The NEW GUARD
100% ODOR
PROTECTION
*
CHANGE
AGENTS
AVAILABLE IN 3 FORMS
GRETCHEN
HAMEL
The Republican
strategist who formerly
served as press
secretary for the House
GOP now advises Iowa
U.S. Senate candidate
Joni Ernst’s campaign.
INVISIBLE SOLID
GOES ON DRY & STAYS DRY
JESS MCINTOSH
33, COMMUNICATIONS
DIRECTOR, EMILY’S
LIST (@JESS_MC)
She’s front and
center at the Beltway
institution that works
to elect pro-choice
Democratic women,
and collaborates with
media outlets and
celebrity supporters
(like Lena Dunham) to
promote EMILY’s List
and its president,
Stephanie Schriock.
CLEAR GEL
NO WHITE MARKS
BUFFY WICKS
37, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR,
PRIORITIES USA
ACTION
(@BUFFYWICKS)
SMOOTH SOLID
SKIN SOOTHING CONDITIONERS
*100% odor protection from odor typically noticed by others
© Procter & Gamble, Inc., 2014
Known as “Buffy the
Walmart Slayer” for
her work on behalf
of unions against the
retailer, she now
oversees the powerful
and deep-pocketed
super political action
committee devoted
to landing another
Democrat in the White
House in 2016.
35, FOUNDER,
CANDESCENT FILMS
YAEL COHEN
BRAUN
28, FOUNDER AND
CEO, FUCK
CANCER (@YAEL)
After her mother
was diagnosed
with breast cancer
(she survived),
Cohen founded
this nonprofit to
educate Millennials
on early diagnosis.
She recently
launched
StandWith, an app
that helps caregivers
and loved ones
manage tasks
during treatment.
This summer,
Cohen wed music
manager Scooter
Braun, who reps
Justin Bieber and
Ariana Grande.
The actress turned
award-winning
documentary producer
financed Javier Bardem’s
Sons of Clouds, Sundance
winner The Queen of
Versailles, and, airing on
HBO earlier this year,
Private Violence.
ASHLEY SPILLANE
30, PRESIDENT,
ROCK THE VOTE
(@ASPILLANE)
The seasoned campaign
operative—she was a
Kerry–Edwards field
organizer and Hillary
Clinton regional field
director—is now reviving
the ’90s-era voter
registration juggernaut,
just in time for 2016.
MEET & GREET
TOP CONFERENCES ATTENDED BY
THE NEW GUARD THIS YEAR
TED
41%
SXSW
69%
TechCrunch
Disrupt
28%
Sundance
Film
Festival
21%
21%
Clinton
Global
Initiative
24%
Cannes Film
Festival
21%
Fortune
The Most
Powerful
Women
SPILLANE, COHEN BRAUN, AND HARTLEY: GETTY ; ALL OTHERS: COURTESY OF SUBJECTS
34, FOUNDER,
HIGHLINE STRATEGIES
(@DCGRETCHEN)
LILLY HARTLEY