Jeanell English, executive vice president of impact and inclusion, is exiting her role at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
English was promoted to the newly created role in July 2022 by Academy CEO Bill Kramer. In her role, she led the Academy’s initiatives to address underrepresentation across the industry and the talent development programs such as Academy Gold.
Over the past year, she’s been a key figure in major initiatives and changes across the organization including developing the infrastructure for the Academy’s inclusion standards and enabling a path for community, advocacy, education and empowerment amongst its members and staff. She also designed and implemented the Academy’s first mid-career talent development program, the Academy Film Accelerator, which advocates for the careers of filmmakers from underrepresented communities.
Formerly an executive with Discovery, English joined the Academy staff in 2020. Before joining the Academy, English worked for over a decade in global diversity and inclusion strategy, employee engagement, corporate social responsibility, cross-cultural training and talent management.
Her exit follows several other key Hollywood diversity and inclusion executives who were either laid off or left their posts. This includes Karen Horne, who led DEI efforts for Warner Bros. Discovery, Vernā Myers, the first head of inclusion at Netflix who stepped down after five years and LaTondra Newton, Disney’s chief diversity officer and senior vice president, who left to join the board at another company.
The Academy is in the first year of implementing the diversity and inclusion standards that were first announced in 2020 as part of its Aperture 2024 initiative. Though the standards were announced and explained three years ago, vocal detractors like Richard Dreyfus have since complained about the organization’s efforts.
Following the recent announcement of the 398 industry professionals invited to join the Academy, the membership now stands at 34% women, 18% from underrepresented communities and 20% from outside the U.S.
