Amy Entelis

Amy Entelis is executive vice president for talent and content development for CNN Worldwide. She is based in New York. Soon after her arrival in 2012, Entelis began shaping a renaissance at CNN, initiating the hires of more than 30 television journalists, scores of contributors and commentators, and launching four premium content brands for the network's global platforms. Under her leadership, CNN launched CNN Original Series and HLN Original Series, which develop non-fiction programming; CNN Films, which produces and acquires documentary films for festival, theatrical, and broadcast distribution; and CNN Films Presents, which acquires encore runs of notable documentary features for broadcast on CNN. In only six years, Entelis and her series content development team have produced more than 35 CNN Original Series, including the 10-time Primetime Emmy® Award-winning Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown, produced by Zero Point Zero Production. The series won Primetime Emmy® Awards for Outstanding Informational Series in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2018, as well as a 2013 Peabody Award for excellence and meritorious work. Entelis' series content team also developed the three-time Primetime Emmy® Award-winning United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell, which received back-to-back Primetime Emmy® Awards in 2017 and 2018 for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program. To date, CNN Original Series has earned a total of 15 Emmy® Awards. Also developed under Entelis' guidance for CNN Original Series are: The History of Comedy, executive produced by Sean Hayes, Todd Milliner, Mark Herzog, and Christopher Cowen; the Primetime Emmy® Award-nominated "Decades Series": The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties, The Nineties, and The 2000s, executive produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Mark Herzog; This is Life with Lisa Ling; Race for the Whtie House narrated by Mahershala Ali Soundtracks: Songs That Made History executive produced by Dwayne Johnson; Morgan Spurlock Inside Man, honored as Best Limited Series at the 29th annual International Documentary Association (IDA) awards; Chicagoland and Death Row Stories, with executive producer Robert Redford's Sundance Productions; The Hunt with John Walsh; Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery; Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies hosted by former Congressman Mike Rogers, and The Wonder List with Bill Weir. In 2018, CNN Original Series launched five new series: The Radical Story of Patty Hearst; Pope: The Most Powerful Man in History; Christiane Amanpour: Sex & Love Around the World, 1968: The Year That Changed America and American Dynasties: The Kennedys, which is the most-watched CNN Original Series among total viewers to date. In 2017, Entelis extended the original series franchise to CNN sister network, HLN and launched more than five HLN Original Series dedicated to true crime, mysteries, and investigations. The highly-rated programming includes Unmasking A Killer, Inside Evil with Chris Cuomo, How It Really Happened with Hill Harper, and Something's Killing Me with BD Wong. Since 2012, CNN Films has acquired, co-produced, or commissioned more than 40 feature and short films, including 2018's RBG, directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen, and THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS, directed by Tim Wardle. Both films premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and have been honored with 2018 Critics' Choice Documentary Awards. In addition, both films recently secured a spot on the 2019 Oscars Shortlist in the category of Best Documentary Feature. Also in 2018, LOVE, GILDA, directed by Lisa D'Apolito, premiered as the opening night film for the Tribeca Film Festival, and later won the audience award at the Cinetopia Film Festival. Theatrical, and other platform distribution rights, for LOVE, GILDA, THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS and RBG, were sold to global distributors during their festival runs (CNN Films retained American television distribution rights for all three films). RBG earned more than $14 million during its theatrical exhibition, and THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS has earned more $12 million during its theatrical exhibition, placing both films among the top 30 highest-grossing documentaries of all time, in terms of North American box office performance. For its television premiere, more than 2.25M viewers watched RBG on CNN/U.S., ranking its premiere ratings in first place among cable news viewers for key demographic groups. Across all of the airings of RBG on CNN, the film has been seen by more than 10.8M total viewers. For 2019, Entelis announced her team's intention to produce a biographical documentary about the life of Anthony Bourdain, as well as a groundbreaking archival restoration, feature film, and institutional large-format film about the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission, directed and produced by Todd Douglas Miller. Prior CNN Films include BLACKFISH, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite; Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, directed by Alex Gibney; OUR NIXON, directed by Penny Lane; LIFE ITSELF, directed by Steve James; the News & Documentary Emmy®-winning DINOSAUR 13, directed by Todd Douglas Miller; WHITEY: United States of America v. James J. Bulger, directed by Joe Berlinger; LEGION OF BROTHERS, directed by Greg Barker; THE REAGAN SHOW, directed by Pacho Velez and Sierra Pettengill; GLEN CAMPBELL...I'll Be Me directed by James Keach; AMERICAN JAIL, directed by Roger Ross Williams; ALL-AMERICAN FAMILY, directed by Andrew Jenks; NOW MORE THAN EVER: The History of Chicago, directed by Peter Pardini; ELIÁN, directed by Tim Miller and Ross Golden; TROPHY, directed by Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau; JEREMIAH TOWER: The Last Magnificent, directed by Lydia Tenaglia, THE END: Inside the Last Days of the Obama White House, and more. CNN Films has won one News & Documentary Emmy for DINOSAUR 13 and one Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for RBG. Entelis has also developed unique co-production partnerships to contribute to the documentary film industry and further the impact of nonfiction content. In 2016, Entelis' team acquired the Peabody and Emmy® award-winning film, 9/11, directed by Gédéon Naudet. 9/11: Fifteen Years Later premiered on CNN Worldwide as a CNN Films Presents broadcast, and the network preserved and updated the original film archive for future generations of researchers. Together with The Documentary Group, Entelis co-developed WE WILL RISE: Michelle Obama's Mission to Educate Girls Around the World and Girl Rising, amplifying calls to action for the rights of women and girls. WE WILL RISE, featuring First Lady Michelle Obama, Meryl Streep, Freida Pinto, and CNN's Isha Sesay, explored the lives of girls in Liberia and Morocco seeking their educations. That film was honored with a 2017 Television Academy Honors Award, conferred for content that has 'harnessed the extraordinary power of television to advance social change,' and received a CINE Golden Eagle for exceptional nonfiction media content. CNN Films and CNN Original Series have screened at the Sundance Film Festival, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, SXSW Film Festival, and at both the Tribeca Film and Tribeca Television festivals, among many others. In 2015, CNN Films entered into a multi-year partnership with Tribeca Film Institute and Camden International Film Festival (Points North Institute) to present the annual Camden/TFI Filmmaker Retreat, to support the development of emerging documentary filmmaker talent. Entelis began her illustrious career in television journalism at ABC News, initially as a producer on the weekly news magazine 20/20, and later a producer for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. During her 30-year tenure at ABC News, Entelis worked in various roles of increasing responsibility, ultimately serving as senior vice president for talent strategy, development, and research. ABC News President Roone Arledge recruited Entelis for her first management role with a mandate to develop women and minorities for on-air positions. Later at ABC News, Entelis pioneered the first system in network news that coordinated the identification, recruitment, and development of all on-air talent. She hired and developed the careers of hundreds of ABC News journalists, including recruiting and managing talent for the network's most high-profile news programs including Good Morning America, World News Tonight, Nightline, and 20/20. The DuPont-Columbia Award, National News & Documentary Emmy®, the Front Page Award from the Newswomen's Club of NY, the Headliner Award, and the Planned Parenthood Award are among the honors she received while at ABC News. Following ABC News, and before she joined CNN, Entelis served as executive vice president for talent strategy at Sucherman Consulting Group. A graduate of Vassar College, Entelis received a Master of Science degree in journalism from Columbia University and serves as a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.