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Janet Yang

Award-winning Producer and President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

An Emmy and Golden Globe-winning Hollywood producer, Yang recently completed three one-year terms as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, ending her tenure on June 30, 2025. She is the first Asian American to hold this position. In July 2025, she became a founding partner of First Light StoryHouse, a new venture with Miky Lee of CJ Entertainment
and Dominic Ng of East West Bank.

Yang came to prominence through her collaboration with Steven Spielberg on “Empire of the Sun” (Warner Bros), followed by a long partnership with multiple Academy Award-winner Oliver Stone where she served as Executive Producer on the iconic “The Joy Luck Club” (Disney), and as a Producer on the Golden Globe-winning “The People vs. Larry Flynt” (Columbia
Pictures).

Most recently, Yang was an Executive Producer on the Oscar-nominated “Over the Moon” (Netflix, 2020). Her other works include “Dark Matter” (Sundance winner) with Meryl Streep, “The Weight of Water” (Lionsgate) directed by Kathryn Bigelow with Sean Penn, “High Crimes” (Fox) with Morgan Freeman, and cult favorites “Zero Effect” (Jake Kasdan) and “Shanghai
Calling” (China Film Group).

Yang was named one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood” by The Hollywood Reporter, included in Variety’s “Power of Women,” and was featured on the Forbes 2024 “50 over 50” List.

Yang began her career by running the first distribution company to market Chinese films into North America. She also brokered the reintroduction of American cinema to the Chinese marketplace on behalf of several studios after a decades-long hiatus.

Committed to fostering global understanding, Yang is a co-founder of Gold House, the non-profit collective of influential Asian cultural leaders; a long-standing member of the Committee of 100, an organization of the most prominent Chinese-Americans; and an advisory board member of Asia Society Southern California where she also chairs its highly regarded US-Asia Entertainment Summit.

Yang is the first Asian American to have a pillar dedicated to her inside the Renzo Piano-designed Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

For more information, please visit: www.janetyang.com