2024 AIS Evolve Summit Guests

Adam Nusinow joined Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production in 2015 and is now a Production Executive where he oversees the AVATAR SEQUELS and serves as the Executive Producer of LAUNCHPAD Disney+ Series. His career began on the Sony Scoring Stage where he assisted composers such as Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman on the films PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4 (2011) and REAL STEEL (2011). In addition, he worked on the recording of Barbara Streisand’s Grammy nominated album WHAT MATTERS MOST (2011). Soon after, Adam jumped into production to work as an assistant on SAVING MR. BANKS (2013), ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE HORRIBLE (2014)... for Walt Disney Studios and eventually THE REVENANT (2015) at Anonymous Content. He then joined the team at Everdream Entertainment where he produced several music videos and commercials for artists like Lindsey Stirling and To Be One which have since garnered millions of views. In 2015 he was hired at Walt Disney Studios Physical Production to work for Philip Steuer (President, Walt Disney & 20th Century Studios) to help oversee film production as a studio coordinator and manager on the Live Action films such as QUEEN OF KATWE (2016), CHRISTOPHER ROBIN (2018), THE LION KING (2019), MULAN (2020), and THE LITTLE MERMAID (2023). He then took on the exciting challenge of executive producing two seasons of Disney+ LAUNCHPAD (2022 & 2023), a groundbreaking series promoting underrepresented directors and writers and their diverse stories. This series was important for endorsing equity and representation in media and has since made a meaningful impact on the careers of the talented artists involved in front of and behind the camera. Recently, Adam joined the team on AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER as its production executive. The film was a huge hit and has since gone on to make $2.3 Billion at the box office where it remains as the 3rd highest grossing film of all time. He is currently overseeing physical production on AVATAR 3, 4, & 5 and executive producing LAUNCHPAD Season 3.
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For over 25 years, Alexi Varanko has been a technology provocateur leading people, product, and technology transformation initiatives for travel, media, and entertainment industries. In his current role Alexi is the Vice President of Cloud & Data Transformation Engineering, for The Walt Disney Company.  His responsibilities include enabling teams in Disney to use technology and the cloud to engage customers, support employees, and enable the magic across the Company. This includes the implementation and adoption of Cloud, infrastructure, building core platforms, and shared services across the enterprise. His early experience at Disney included work at Walt Disney Studios, where he helped reinvent the direct-to-consumer experience by helping to build and launch Disney Movies Anywhere — which evolved into Movies Anywhere today. He also managed technical support for movie production on-set for Disney live-action films, post-production support on the studio lot, supporting systems that enabled theatrical releases, and direct-to-consumer infrastructure systems for the studios. Now part of the Enterprise Technology organization, Alexi is responsible for helping to establish and implement strategic technology priorities and initiatives, including the Enterprise Cloud Program, Hosting Modernization, AI platforms, and championing DevOps, Reliability Engineering, Developer/Engineering Experience, Agile, and a Product mindset. In this role, he provides technical thought leadership and guidance in transforming his teams into an efficient, global service results-driven delivery team. Before joining Disney in 2011, Alexi spent over 15 years in startup and corporate consulting in the healthcare, financial, new media, and computer industries. He has extensive experience building & running high-volume Internet e-commerce properties and leading innovative engineering projects that provide systems that deliver business value and cultivate results-driven teams. Some of Alexi’s previous experience includes positions at Microsoft & Experian and extensive international experience building and leading organizations across India, Ireland, Singapore, China, Chile, and Mexico. Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, Alexi has lived “up and down” the entire western coast of the U.S. He currently resides in Seattle, Washington, with his wife and two children. He’s an avid outdoorsman who enjoys surfing, scuba diving, sailing, paddle-boarding, and cycling.
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Andrew Shulkind is the Head of Capture and Innovation for MSG Sphere Studios, where he leads a diverse team of technologists and imagemakers developing and deploying the next-generation camera, production, and audio tools required to create content for The Sphere.   Additionally, Andrew is the principal Director of Photography for Sphere content and serves on the Los Angeles-based studio leadership team, answering both the creative “what” and the technical “how.” Andrew came to Sphere as an award-winning director of photography, advanced imaging consultant, and one of the leading industry voices on the future of entertainment.  He has spent over two decades on the front lines of where technology meets entertainment, helping forge a hybrid future that merges experiential media, traditional cinema, live events, and commercial art and advertising. His work is best known for letting the creative drive the product, integrating live action cinematography with cutting edge solutions such as large format and high speed imaging, 360˚ photography, volumetric capture and data scanning. Andrew has also helped launched a range of camera and lighting products and advised a wide range of leading technology players, studios, and brands on content innovation strategy, including Google, Facebook, Verizon, Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, Live Nation, and the NBA.  He was awarded with the Emerging Cinematographer Award from the International Cinematographers Guild in 2014, the Innovator of the Year Prime Award from Studio Daily in 2014 and 2016, as well as Variety Magazine’s 10 Cinematographers to Watch in 2018.
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Archana Vemulapalli is AMD CVP, Global Commercial Sales, overseeing the Global Server and Data Center Sales teams and leads GSI/SI alliances worldwide across the Data Center ecosystem. Archana has extensive experience from her previous leadership positions at AWS, where she was the Head of Product Management and Global Strategy for Data and AI services at AWS spanning AI/ML, Generative AI, Next Generation Developer experience, Analytics and Database products. She served as a Senior Advisor to CEOs, Boards, Government and C-Suite leaders as they form their Data and AI corporate strategy and is helping leaders embrace Generative AI. She joined AWS in 2021 as the Head of Solutions Architecture for North America, where she led a team of more than 1,400 solutions architects to enable some of the world’s largest companies to leverage the latest innovations in cloud computing technology. Archana is an accomplished business leader with deep technology expertise. She is recognized for executing strategies that help global companies build teams, develop the right organizational structures and create value with data services that rapidly transform their business. Prior to AWS, Archana was the General Manager (P&L) and Global CTO for IBM's $22B Infrastructure Services business with direct oversight of global portfolio strategy, software product development, and offerings portfolio for 175 countries and more than 7,000 clients. In her role, Archana transformed product strategy, investments, and management to drive double digit software led cloud services growth globally. Prior to IBM, Archana served as the CTO for Washington DC, where she held a key cabinet position overseeing the central technology agency overseeing $1B in IT spend citywide, managing enterprise applications, infrastructure, and delivering services to 33,000 employees and 670,000 district residents. Archana serves on the Trustees Council of Penn Women, the James Brister Society at the University of Pennsylvania, and is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Global Good Fund. She is the recipient of several honors, including the Washington Business Journal’s C-Suite Award, The Washingtonian Tech Titan Award, State Scoop’s Golden Executive of the Year Award, and Top Women in Tech Award. She has a master’s degree in leadership from McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, a master’s degree in Telecommunications from the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree in Engineering from the University of Madras.
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Barbara is a media and entertainment executive, advisor, and former CTO, who has been working in film, series, and location based entertainment production for over 25 years. She most recently served as President of Prysm, NEP Virtual Studios, leading development creative services and operations for global virtual production in film and series production. As CTO at Meow Wolf, she led the company’s mixed-reality platform and IT divisions. Before Meow Wolf, she served as SVP, Digital Production at HBO overseeing studio production and post-production operations, and next-gen technologies. She previously worked at entertainament companies Digital Domain, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and DreamWorks Animation, where she enabled new digital human animation and rendering, digital story and post production workflows, and simulations technologies. Her credits include groundbreaking Film and TV productions Game of Thrones, Maleficent, Alice in Wonderland and the Shrek franchise. She is a member of both the Television Academy and the Motion Picture Academy, currently serving as Chair of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee, is a member of the Technology Committee of the Visual Effects Society.
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Bill Baggelaar is the former Chief Technology Officer at Sony Pictures Entertainment. As a visionary senior executive in media technology, Bill sets technology strategy, leads research & development efforts, and leverages emerging technologies that shape the future of cloud-based production, post-production, and delivery of creative content. Bill brings his extensive experience in production, visual effects, and post-production along with his work, collaborating with partners throughout the industry in developing and implementing key technologies. His work on IMF, 4K, HDR, and virtual production has been instrumental in driving the entertainment industry forward. Bill is a highly respected, active leader in multiple industry organizations and initiatives. He is the co-chair of The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Science & Technology Council and is the co-chair of the Academy’s ACES Project.  He also serves as the co-chair on the Television Academy’s Generative AI Summit. Bill is a member of SMPTE and active with the Advanced Imaging Society. In his efforts to provide a vision for the future of the entertinment industry, Bill was a co-author on the MovieLabs 2030 Vision whitepaper; “The Future of Media Creation”. Baggelaar joined Sony Pictures in 2011, focusing his efforts on streamlining and advancing 4K HDR workflows from on-set capture through post-production. He led the studio’s transition to the file-based world of IMF (Interoperable Master Format) for UltraHD. He also headed the team at Sony Pictures to develop the world’s first 4K video service, Sony’s “4K Video Unlimited”. Prior to 2011, while at Warner Bros, Bill held positions as the Head of Technology on several animated feature films, as well as VP of Technology, working on the tape-to-file transition and digital color-correction methods and tools to help streamline the post process for film and television. Bill has held board seats with the Entertaiment Technology Center at USC, as well as with MovieLabs, a studio joint-venture focusing on entertainment technologies, which promotes collaboration to strengthen industry goals and helps identify emerging technological needs and solutions.
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Buzz Hays is one of the world’s leading experts on advanced imaging production and technology in the media and entertainment industry. Buzz and his team are responsible for Google Cloud's Content Creation Solutions development in the Media and Entertainment Vertical. He works closely with the top M&E customers of Google Cloud to tailor and build solutions to transform traditional methodologies into cloud native workflows from production to post-production to archive migration. Buzz has been involved in technology for media and entertainment for over 30 years with Google, Lytro, Sony, and Lucasfilm THX. He has produced numerous film and television projects for Disney, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. He is a member of SMPTE, he is the founding Chairman of the Advanced Imaging Society, and he is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences where he serves on the Science and Technology Council.
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Calin’s passion and experience building teams from the ground up at startups or skunkwork projects in larger companies. Combined with his product management, business development and technical knowledge at Apple and Handspring it led him to building Spatial. Calin spent years at Apple working with Steve Jobs & the senior leadership team leading product management for software products from inception to shipping products the world loves today including: iPhone, AppleTV, AirPlay and HealthKit. Prior to Apple, Calin led a number of the core product teams at Handspring developing the Treo product line. Widely regarded as the archetype of the modern smartphone, Calin led the Treo product management, marketing, carrier relations, business development and developer relations teams. Calin has a Masters of Science in Technology Management from Pepperdine University and over 55 issued and pending utility patents.
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Having worked at Brompton between 2017 and 2019 as Product Specialist, followed by senior technical and management roles at disguise and Votion Studios [Hong Kong], Cesar is an expert when it comes to knowing how to use technology to create and deliver spectacular visual, virtual, and live experiences. He has an incredibly strong background in the industry and in his new role as Product Lead he is guiding the way with new and existing products, liaising with Brompton’s key customers across the globe and building deeper connections with them.
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If you’ve seen a Pixar movie in the last fifteen years, you’ve seen & heard the work of Cynthia Slavens and her team in Mastering & Operations department, part of Post Production at Pixar. Responsible for the creation of all in-progress and final deliverables for Pixar’s films, Slavens and her team have supported the creative & technical production teams on Incredibles 2, Coco, Cars 3, Finding Dory, Inside Out, Brave, Toy Story 4, Onward, Luca, Elemental, and most recently, Inside Out 2, among many others. Prior to moving into the Director of Studio Mastering & Operations role in 2010, Slavens was a Post Production Supervisor for Pixar, having started at the studio in 2006.
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