Mindy Kaling and Bela Bajaria in The Hollywood Reporter’s ‘2023 Women in Entertainment Power 100’
- They are listed among trailblazers and trendsetters who have set box office records, filled arenas and put Hollywood back to work.
Actor, writer and producer Mindy Kaling and Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria, are among The Hollywood Reporter’s ‘2023 Women in Entertainment Power 100’ for “setting box office records, filling arenas and putting Hollywood back to work.”
Kaling, one of the most sought-after voices in Hollywood, has given audiences funny, relatable stories about characters rarely seen as television protagonists — from “The Mindy Project” to “Never Have I Ever” and “The Sex Lives of College Girls.” After the strike, her production company Kaling International resumed its Warner Bros.-set deal after the strike.
“She continues to write and produce on Max’s ‘Secret Lives of College Girls’ while she ramps up development thanks to a deal with Amazon MGM Studios for titles in her Mindy’s Book Studio book club,” THR said. On the acting front, she voiced Velma in Max’s controversial but renewed animated Scooby-Doo series of the same name, and continues to show up on “The Morning Show.”
Bajaria who joined Netflix in 2016, was promoted this January to chief content officer, after serving as head of Global TV since 2020. She is in charge of all of the streamer’s scripted and unscripted series around the world, and “manages a $17 billion annual content budget and oversees teams in 27 countries,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
During the past 12 months, she has brought Netflix’s 238 million members some of its most popular titles, including The Night Agent and Wednesday, “the service’s most watched English-language original ever and a big contributor to the streamer’s 103 Emmy nominations.” Before joining the streaming platform in 2016, she was president of Universal Television, where she made history as the first woman of color to oversee a studio.
(Top photos, courtesy Facebook)