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Meet the Nominees of the WiTH Leadership Awards

At this year’s SoCal Women’s Leadership Summit, taking place Nov. 4 in Los Angeles, and co-located with the Infinity Festival Hollywood event, Women in Technology Hollywood (WiTH) will present the winners of the 5th Annual Leadership Awards.

Honouring leaders and advocating for women in the entertainment technology field, the Leadership Awards recognise those who exemplify WiTH’s pillars in both their work and communities, with a focus on those who excel in professional development, mentoring and networking, and community engagement. Past winners of the award included Christina Aguilera, head of technology workflow and strategy for Amazon Studios; Nancy Faginas-Cody, former SVP of enterprise business systems for The Walt Disney Co.; Cristina Mancini-Jones, chief marketing and engagement officer for Salesforce; and Theresa Miller, EVP and CIO for Lionsgate.

Among the nominees are:

Zorina Ohanian

Zorina Ohanian has worked with Sony Pictures Entertainment for more than 20 years and is currently the executive vice president of worldwide distribution, product growth and technology. Described as an amazing leader with a solid vision and empathetic to her team. Ohanian is a mentor to up-and-coming women within Sony and has been an active member with the nonprofit Room to Read programme, which helps children in low-income communities learn literacy skills. Prior to Sony, Ohanian spent nearly a decade working in the healthcare industry.

Janice Pearson

Janice Pearson serves as senior vice president of sales and strategy and is responsible for building XL8 Inc.’s sales organisation in the Americas. She brings 18 years of M&E experience to the company, speaks regularly at industry events, and serves on industry association committees. She’s described as a passionate member of the tech community who always goes above and beyond in her roles to push forward technology, and get other women involved in the M&E technology space.

A former director of business development at Synamedia and former VP of global content protection at Convergent Risks, Pearson also spent nearly a decade working on the content protection and anti-piracy front for Warner Bros.

April Schneider

April Schneider is executive director of IT, TV distribution for Sony Pictures Entertainment. She has served as co-chair of the Sony Pictures Employee Business Resource Group, Women in Technology and recently Schneider took on the role of chair of WiTH’s Community Engagement Committee, interfacing with the five WiTH charities and creating compelling events that educate, inspire, and mentor young people starting in middle school to high school to college and beyond to build the pipeline of tech in our industry. She also has played a lead role in creating a tech apprenticeship programme at Sony Pictures, which advances young adults from the WiTH charities.

Nina Skorus-Neely

Nina Skorus-Neely is the CEO of Stirling Insights and a digital advisor for Microsoft. An executive board member of the WiTH Foundation, Skorus-Neely serves as secretary of WiTH, was the lead producer of the 2021 SoCal Women’s Leadership Summit and created the strategic planning initiative for the WiTH Foundation, setting the roadmap and actions needed to fulfil on WiTH’s mission. She is also co-chair of the Professional Development Committee and was host of the Connection Corner webinar series that provided outlets for WiTH stakeholders to increase skills while networking.

Kelly White

Kelly White is vice president of consumer experiences and product strategy for Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution. In 2016, White co-launched the CODE:Rosie program at Disney, which helps challenge stereotypes and reduce gender gaps in historically male-dominated fields like technology or engineering. The CODE:Rosie program offers women in non-technical roles an opportunity to learn technology, coding and product management skills, with an ultimate goal of finding a place in a new career path in technology at the company.

For more information about the WiTH Leadership Awards, please contact . [email protected]

To register for the event, click here.

To sponsor SoCal Women’s Leadership Summit 2022, contact [email protected].

This is the third article profiling the nominees of the Women in Technology Hollywood (WiTH) 5th Annual Leadership Awards. You can read the first two articles here and here.