The Most Powerful Women in International TV

As the global television industry heads to Cannes for MIPCOM, which runs Oct. 12-15, scale has become the sector’s answer to survival. Comcast’s Sky has agreed to buy ITV’s broadcasting and streaming businesses for 1.6 billion pounds ($2.12 billion), while Banijay’s $8 billion megamerger with All3Media has created an (even larger) indie production and distribution colossus. But these deals are a response to something bigger: a business whose traditional models, built on linear schedules, scripted dramas and predictable ad revenues, are being upended by streaming, vertical dramas and AI’s ability to automate parts of the creative process.

For the women on THR‘s 2026 list of the Most Powerful Women in International Television, the challenge is to adapt to technological disruption without losing what makes the work worth watching. “You’ve got to continue to invest in AI,” says ITV chief Carolyn McCall, who negotiated the Sky deal. “You’ve got to continue to invest in efficiency, and most importantly, you’ve got to have enough money to constantly invest in content, because content is where it’s at. That’s what makes you all your money.” It’s a sentiment — lean into the technology but keep a focus on the creative — echoed by the execs across this list. Rai Fiction’s Maria Pia Ammirati cautions against “the increasing tendency to delegate creative processes to technology,” while Renata Brandão of Brazil’s Conspiração Filmes wants the industry to trust “producers, creators and instinct over predictive metrics.”

Selections were based on an executive’s decision-making authority — the ability to greenlight, commission or finance content — combined with the impact and performance of their work over the past 12 months.

Mo Abudu

CEO, EbonyLife Media (Nigeria)

Abudu has built EbonyLife from a television network into one of Africa’s most ambitious independent media companies, spanning film and television production, talent development and entertainment. She began her media career as the host of pan-African talk show Moments With Mo, launching her own network, EbonyLife TV, in 2013 and film production company EbonyLife Films the following year. EbonyLife was the first African company to sign a multititle deal with Netflix, with Blood Sisters becoming Netflix’s first Nigerian Original series. Abudu has since expanded her international partnerships with companies including Sony, Lionsgate, the BBC and Westbrook Studios.

Her brick-and-mortar efforts include the EbonyLife Creative Academy in Lagos, which offers free training on filmmaking and media content production, and the entertainment and lifestyle resort EbonyLife Place. On Oct. 8, Abudu will open EbonyLife Place London, a cinema, restaurant and music/art venue to showcase African talent.

Says Abudu: “Talent is everywhere, but opportunity, capital and ownership are not. I think about how we create a future where African storytellers are not just telling our stories but owning them, financing them and taking them to the world.”

Maria Pia Ammirati

Director, Rai Fiction (Italy)

Ammirati has spent more than three decades at Italian public broadcaster Rai, moving from journalism and cultural programming into senior management and becoming one of Italy’s most influential television executives. In a moment when commercial TV is in crisis across Europe, public broadcasters are leading the way both technologically, investing in online and mobile production and distribution, and creatively: Rai Fiction’s fall slate includes an ambitious period drama about the rags-to-riches Panini family publishing empire and the comedy crime series A Small Formality, which is focused on millennials, an overlooked demo in traditional TV.

“Audience tastes evolve, as do the social context, technologies and the ways in which people engage with stories,” says Ammirati. “What concerns me most is the increasing tendency to delegate creative processes to technology, with the risk of gradually losing direct contact with the reality we are called upon to portray. It is a challenge we can address and overcome only by ensuring that the human factor remains at the heart of the creative process.”

Nadine Bilke

Chief Content Officer, ZDF (Germany)

A trained journalist who earned her doctorate researching the quality of crisis and war reporting, Bilke joined the German public broadcaster in 2002 and spent much of her early career building ZDF’s digital journalism operation. She became head of ZDFneo in 2018, helping position the channel for younger, digitally oriented audiences, before becoming program director for the parent broadcaster in 2022. Responsible for programming for a nation of 84 million, Bilke says the one thing she worries about “is the growing fragmentation of our societies. We have more content, more platforms and more ways to engage than ever before, yet it is becoming harder to create shared experiences and a common cultural conversation.”

Marie-Philippe Bouchard

President and CEO, CBC/Radio Canada

Bouchard took over CBC/Radio-Canada in January 2025, assuming the tricky role of running Canada’s public broadcaster as linear television shrinks, U.S. streamers dominate Canadian TV, and President Trump’s tariff war and 51st state taunts drive a rise in Canadian patriotism. That’s a bonus for a major broadcaster with a mandate to offer local news, current affairs programming and homegrown TV series coast-to-coast. Bouchard came to the job from TV5 Québec Canada, the French-language broadcaster, where she served as president and CEO from 2016-24.

Renata Brandão

CEO, Conspiração Filmes (Brazil)

Brandão joined Conspiração Filmes in 2006 after studying international relations and communications and completing film-industry studies at UCLA, initially as a production assistant before moving into planning and business management. She became president of business in 2015 and CEO in 2017, helping transform one of Brazil’s best-established independent production companies into an increasingly international operation. Brandão also has expanded Conspiração’s television business beyond Brazil, including into Spanish-language production in Mexico. In 2017, she also founded Hysteria, a Conspiração label focused on stories centered on women. “The obsession with relying strictly on ‘proven IP,’ remakes or hyper-calculated formulas has led to widespread audience fatigue across platforms,” she says. “I would love to see the industry return to trusting producers, creators and instinct over predictive metrics.”

Amelia Brown

CEO, Fremantle U.K.

It just made sense when Brown was appointed Fremantle U.K. CEO in 2023: The industry veteran has been with the company for more than 20 years, instrumental in such early hits as Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor and later Too Hot to Handle for Netflix and Mamma Mia! I Have a Dream for ITV. At the top of the food chain, Brown leads the corporate strategy for one of Britain’s most prolific production outfits and oversees the output of every Fremantle U.K. label.

Carol Choi

Executive VP, The Walt Disney Co. (Asia-Pacific)

Choi’s remit spans both sides of Disney’s Asia-Pacific ambitions: bringing its Hollywood franchises to regional audiences and building a slate of homegrown streaming originals. A Disney veteran since 2006, she previously ran the company’s Japan and Korea businesses and now oversees studios, original content strategy and integrated marketing across the region. With a significant ramp-up of Disney+’s production of international originals now underway, she points to the work of teams in Japan, Korea and Australia as a particular source of pride this year. “From Perfect Crown to A Shop for Killers season two, Battle of Fates and The One Shot, it’s clear that great local stories can stand proudly alongside our most iconic global franchises,” she says.

Priya Dogra

CEO, Channel 4 (U.K.)

Dogra was named CEO of the British broadcaster in December, taking over from Alex Mahon. Her résumé was substantive: She joined Comcast-owned Sky in 2024 as its chief advertising, group data and new revenue officer, having worked at Warner Bros. Discovery and its predecessors for 14 years. At Channel 4, she’s undoubtedly inherited one of the trickiest jobs in the biz — the cash-strapped PSB must adapt or die — and in September unveiled a raft of cuts, she said, part of C4’s “long-term transformation strategy.”

Cécile Frot-Coutaz

CEO, Sky Studios; Chief Content Officer, Sky (U.K.)

The Sky Studios boss actually had her role expanded following Dogra’s departure to Channel 4 and now oversees its advertising division, too. Frot-Coutaz’s remit was already vast — she leads the development, production and commissioning of all of Sky’s original programming, including such record-breaking titles as the Emmy-nominated The Day of the Jackal and the risky SNL UK spinoff. More recently, she’s championed the Dominic West and Sienna Miller-led War, set to dominate our screens this autumn, and played a crucial role in that enormous, billion-dollar ITV-Sky sale. Frot-Coutaz also supervises Sky Studios Elstree, Sky’s state-of-the-art film and TV studio, plus Sky Studios’ global portfolio of production companies that includes Blast! Films, Jupiter Entertainment, True North and Love Productions.

Jay Hunt

Creative Director of Worldwide Video, Europe, Apple (U.K.)

The British Film Institute chair has continued to deftly straddle two enormous jobs in European film and TV. At Apple TV, she’s been pivotal in its transition from middle of the pack to streamer to beat, having championed some of the platform’s biggest global hits, most notably the Emmy-winning Slow Horses, which just scored an eighth season, the BAFTA-winning Bad Sisters and enduringly popular The Buccaneers. Among Hunt’s most anticipated upcoming commissions are Will Sharpe’s magnum opus, Prodigies, and Juno Temple’s starry comedy-drama The Husbands.

Angela Jain

Head of Content, Disney+ EMEA (U.K.)

Jain is overseeing a unit that includes the likes of Rivals, Extraordinary and Stephen Graham’s A Thousand Blows, three huge shows that helped score Disney+ a record 15 BAFTA TV Award nods in March. Before joining the Disney+ team last year, Jain had commissioning stints at E4 and ITV2, where she was responsible for some of the biggest British shows, including Misfits and The Inbetweeners. At ITV Studios, she oversaw big-hitters Love Island and I’m a Celeb. Under Jain, the EMEA team is “ramping up” production across Europe, with regional commissions including the Venice-premiering Oasis documentary and Italy’s Murder on Lake Garda.

Ekta Kapoor

Joint Managing Director, Balaji Telefilms (India)

More than three decades after co-founding Balaji, Kapoor remains one of Indian television’s defining hitmakers. Her revived family soap Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2 has topped ratings charts this year, underscoring the enduring pull of her franchises. But the veteran producer also is finding new outlets for her signature serial storytelling. Balaji’s long-term creative partnership with Netflix, announced last year, marked a push to develop projects across multiple formats. In September, she made another significant move: a YouTube partnership for five premium scripted shows spanning 200 episodes. Kapoor will lead the creative direction, with Balaji retaining the underlying IP while tapping YouTube’s global distribution and advertising business — a savvy expansion that doesn’t involve surrendering ownership of her stories.

M-K Kennedy

Managing Director Worldwide Television, StudioCanal (France)

Kennedy has built a career around taking local television production global. A native of Bucaramanga, Colombia, she began in Washington, D.C., producing the Hispanic Heritage Awards before moving to Telemundo, where she helped establish Telemundo Studios Mexico. After seven years at Universal Television and UCP in Los Angeles, she joined Netflix, where she built production teams across Latin America and Europe and oversaw major local-language productions including Money Heist, Dark, Lupin and All Quiet on the Western Front. Last year, Kennedy took charge of StudioCanal’s newly reorganized Worldwide Television division, overseeing the French giant’s international TV drama slate that includes several film-to-series spinoffs drawing from StudioCanal’s vast library. There’s A Prophet (from the 2009 Jacques Audiard prison drama), Apollo Has Fallen (based on the Gerard Butler action franchise) and Army of Shadows, a reimagining of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 film about the French resistance in World War II that is set to star Paddy Considine, Kit Harington, Susan Sarandon and Olivia Colman.

Minyoung Kim

VP Content, Netflix, APAC (excluding India)

For the executive who greenlit Squid Game, Netflix’s most watched series of all time, the bar for a good year is unusually high. But Kim, who is approaching her 10th anniversary at Netflix in November and has overseen the bulk of the streamer’s output in the Asia-Pacific region, has yet another global hit to celebrate. Korea’s Teach You a Lesson recently joined the streamer’s all-time top 10 for non-English television. According to Netflix, APAC content now accounts for more than half the titles in its global non-English Top 10, up from about 30 percent in 2021, while annual worldwide viewing hours for content from the region have quadrupled since 2019. This year’s slate stretches from Thailand’s The Evil Lawyer to Japan’s Plastic Beauty and Australia’s My Brilliant Career alongside a push into live programming with events including BTS: The Comeback and Skyscraper Live. “We’re always looking for the magic of something unexpected that captures the imagination and gets people excited,” she says. “Doing that once or twice is hard work, doing that constantly across nine APAC countries is enough to give anyone insomnia. But, when we get it right, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

Anna Marsh

CEO, StudioCanal; Member of Canal+ Board; Canal+ Group Chief Content Officer (France)

Marsh has spent more than two decades building an international career in film and television sales, distribution and production, rising from international sales at Tele Images and TF1 International to the top of leading French major StudioCanal in 2019. She joined the management board of parent Canal+ in 2022, becoming deputy CEO, and is now also chief content officer for the entire group, putting her undeniably among the most powerful and influential figures in global entertainment with a remit that extends beyond TV to awards-worthy cinema, including this year’s fall festival favorites Elsinore with Andrew Scott and Danny Boyle’s Ink with Jack O’Connell. Under Marsh, StudioCanal has continued to expand its European production and distribution footprint, taking a controlling stake in Italian distributor/producer Lucky Red and Nordic outfit SAM Productions and, at the Canal+ level, signing a new three-year partnership with British pay TV giant Sky that will see the companies develop and co-finance at least two premium English-language dramas a year. Closer to home, Canal+ has announced a French version of Saturday Night Live set to launch this year.

Carolyn McCall

CEO, ITV (U.K.)

Has anyone had a busier year than McCall? She negotiated the biggest international TV deal of the year — the 1.6 billion-pound ($2.12 billion) sale of ITV’s broadcasting and streaming business to the Comcast-owned Sky — and handled the aftermath with cool-as-a-cucumber self-assurance. “The announcement of the sale … was a defining moment for ITV,” McCall said on a call with journalists as the company unveiled 2 percent revenue growth in the first half of the year. Unfazed by the prospect of regulatory approval hurdles, McCall (who noted it was ITV who instigated the sale) and her team will be responsible for the most formidable British media group the U.K. has ever seen. Sky would acquire ITV’s networks and streaming businesses (Media & Entertainment) — including the ITV channel portfolio and ITVX — while ITV Studios, the production outfit behind such franchises as Love Island, Britain’s Got Talent and the Netflix hit Fool Me Once, is to be spun off as a standalone listed company, McCall has confirmed. “The competition is ferocious,” she said at a Royal Television Society event in London in September. “It’s not just [being] bigger; it’s also the investment. So you have to invest in technology. You’ve got to continue to invest in AI. You’ve got to continue to invest in efficiency and, most importantly, you’ve got to have enough money to constantly invest in content because content is where it’s at. That’s what makes you all your money.” She has certainly delivered on her promise since taking up the post in 2018, when she vowed to launch a new strategic vision — “more than TV” — in a bid to help ITV adapt to the rapidly evolving media landscape. Her experience spans the top jobs at several of Britain’s leading businesses, including EasyJet and the Guardian Media Group.

Beverley McGarvey

President, Network 10 (Australia)

Twenty years after joining Network 10, McGarvey oversees a portfolio stretching from such free-to-air staples as MasterChef Australia to Paramount+’s full slate of local originals, including NCIS: Sydney and the true-crime series Who the Hell Is Hamish? She says the company’s free streaming service is having its “biggest year yet,” while innovative recent partnerships with such brands as LG and TikTok — the latter aimed at bringing new audiences to Big Brother — have begun to offer fresh avenues to viewers. Keeping Australian production viable amid rising costs and fragmenting audiences remains her priority. “My challenge is creating efficiencies to keep investment flowing into our local content,” she says. One show she wishes she had made over the past year? Disney+’s Rivals. “I just love the escapist, compelling juiciness of the stories,” she says.

Anne Mensah

VP Content, Netflix (U.K.)

Netflix has invested an eye-watering 4.45 billion pounds ($6 billion) in U.K. productions since 2020, creating more than 50,000 jobs in the process. It’s not a stretch to say Mensah and her team have spent well — the buzziest projects among the streamer’s British TV slate continue to overperform across the globe, among them Heartstopper, Adolescence, Black Doves and The Gentlemen. And that’s before you get to the Kate Winslet-Maxine Peake two-hander (The Unheard), the untitled Roald Dahl adaptation and the Barry Keoghan-led Top Boy prequel.

Cathy Payne

CEO, Banijay Rights (U.K.)

This year, it was confirmed that Payne would be steering the ship of Banijay Entertainment’s global distribution business following the $8 billion megamerger with All3Media. She’s remained in her post as CEO of Banijay Rights, too, with the Aussie-born executive overseeing the sales of such colossal hits as Survivor, Big Brother and MasterChef, as well as Black Mirror and Peaky Blinders worldwide.

Kate Phillips

Chief Content Officer, BBC (U.K.)

Phillips’ lengthy BBC experience primed her for the CCO role at Britain’s top broadcaster: She was director of unscripted from May 2022 and before that commissioned more than 500 hours of original programs a year, including the still massively popular Strictly Come Dancing and The Graham Norton Show. Now, she’s responsible for all BBC network TV and radio output. Says Phillips, “I’m continually thinking about how we reach audiences who are consuming media on so many different platforms now while still retaining the attribution to the BBC.”

Lindsay Salt

Director of Drama, BBC (U.K.)

Salt is literally behind every single success out of the BBC’s behemoth drama division: Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer follow-up, Half-Man; the long-awaited second season of The Night Manager; and Sally Wainwright’s Riot Women. She is also the commissioner on some impossibly huge international co-productions, including the BBC and Netflix’s Lord of the Flies and the BritBox phenomenon The Other Bennet Sister (the biggest U.K. drama launch — across all platforms and streamers — this entire year). This is but a fraction of her work platforming original voices, and Salt’s eye for savvy storytelling keeps the BBC’s reputation for prestige drama in tip-top shape.

Monika Shergill

VP Content, Netflix (India)

Netflix’s 10th year in India has given Shergill plenty to celebrate. According to the streamer, India became its largest contributor to non-English film viewing globally in the first half of 2026, while the crime thriller Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web became the first Indian series to debut at No. 1 on its global non-English TV chart. Her slate’s breadth also is unmatched by global companies operating in the country, spanning the military drama Operation Safed Sagar, the reality series Lock Upp: Sach Ya Sazaa and the Tamil film Made in Korea. “I’m proudest of the range we’ve brought to audiences,” she says. But amid shifting viewing habits, she notes she’s focused most on the nuances within India’s vast viewership: “In a market as diverse as ours, the challenge isn’t scale; it’s specificity for different types of audiences.”

Christine Strobl

Program Director, ARD (Germany)

Strobl has spent her career at the intersection of public service broadcasting and German television drama. A lawyer by training from an impressive family (her father is conservative political icon Wolfgang Schäuble, former president and longest-serving member of the German Parliament), Strobl joined regional public broadcaster SWR in 1999 and rose through programming roles, becoming head of the broadcaster’s film and family programming in 2011. In 2012, she moved to ARD subsidiary Degeto Film as managing director, where she oversaw the development, acquisition and co-production of fiction for the public broadcaster and fought the channel bosses to secure financing for the most expensive German drama of all time: Babylon Berlin. Backed by ARD and pay TV network Sky, Babylon was an early example of Strobl’s push toward cross-channel cooperation, something she’s extended to sports (ARD and streamer Magenta shared rights to matches at this year’s World Cup) and entertainment (the network is seeking a partner to join forces, and share costs, for the broadcast of the next Eurovision Song Contest). Her favorite non-ARD show of the year was Netflix’s German spy thriller Unfamiliar. “The story itself, with all its twists and turns, is the real star,” she says. “It’s exactly what German fiction can be: high-quality, surprisingly directed and thus internationally appealing.”

Karen Thorne-Stone

President and CEO, Ontario Creates (Canada)

As head of the Canadian province’s media investment agency, Thorne-Stone finances everything from feature films to XR content. That role now means navigating industry contraction and uncertainty and ensuring Hollywood producers keep coming to Ontario for tax credits, local talent and varied locations. “There is no end to the talent in our province and country, and we have an extraordinary capacity to fuel growth, jobs and investment if we maintain an environment where creators and businesses can thrive,” she tells THR about her province staying competitive with rival locales.

Jane Turton

Deputy CEO, Banijay Entertainment (U.K.)

Turton is entering a new chapter after steering All3Media for a decade as the company completed its $8 billion megamerger with Banijay this year to create the undisputed indie production and distribution champ. The globe-spanning group with 130 production companies across 25 countries boasts a content catalog that includes The Traitors, Big Brother, MasterChef, Peaky Blinders and Midsomer Murders. The deal marks the end of the All3Media brand, but for Turton, it’s the start of a new chapter. “Leading All3Media has been a huge pleasure and privilege,” she said after the merger closed in July, adding that the combination of the two indie powerhouses would multiply future opportunities “many times over,” bringing together the capacity to deliver “brilliant shows developed and produced by world-class talent” with “the strength of a global distributor, a market-leading digital studio and a growing live events business.”

Kylie Watson-Wheeler

Senior VP and Managing Director, Disney Australia & New Zealand / head, ESPN APAC (Australia)

With The Artful Dodger in production on a third season, Watson-Wheeler, among her many achievements, now has Disney+’s first homegrown Australian streaming hit. She calls the renewal “a rare achievement and a strong marker of the show’s appeal both locally and internationally.” The veteran exec oversees Disney’s Australia and New Zealand businesses and ESPN across Asia-Pacific. After bringing ESPN onto Disney+ in the two countries last year, she has another milestone to celebrate in 2026: the recent successful launch of Disney+ with ads, the streamer’s first ad-supported tier in Asia-Pacific. “Our ad-tier momentum is strong, with sustained acquisition growth and strong engagement,” she says, pointing to opportunities to attract both advertisers and cost-conscious viewers with the platform’s growing mix of live sports, Hulu programming and Disney’s deep library.

Profiles by Patrick Brzeski, Lily Ford, Scott Roxborough and Etan Vlessing.

This story appeared in the Oct. 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.