CEO, Newspeak Consulting Group; Formerly Head of Show Development at DreamWorks Animation SKG (Los Angeles)

John is returning to Oz after a 20 year hiatus.  In the late 80s, he first came to Australia as a production executive with DeLaurentiis Entertainment, working on the construction of the company’s Gold Coast production. 

He subsequently helped engineer the sale of the facility to Village-Roadshow, and joined Village as Executive Vice President, Production in Los Angeles, helping cofound Village-Roadshow Pictures with Greg Coote.  In VRP’s initial run, John served as an Executive Producer on the company’s first slate of films, including Blood Oath, Turtle Beach, and The Delinquents.

Through his consultancy, Newspeak Consulting Group, John’s current focus is to develop stronger working relationships between the media/entertainment business and higher education, addressing the challenges of preparing new talent for this rapidly evolving industry in the digital age.  Current clients include Carnegie Mellon University’s Masters of Entertainment Industry Management graduate program, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and the ACME Network, a leading online creative skills mentorship community.

From 2003-2009, John was Head of Show Development at DreamWorks Animation SKG.  During his tenure, John supervised DreamWorks’ early production/prototyping program, expanded the company’s internal Artistic Development program, and founded the successful Academic Outreach program to identify and recruit entry-level animation artists and engineers from leading universities worldwide.  His talent development initiatives helped migrate artists from traditional to digital workflows, and saved the company millions of hard dollars in staffing and productivity costs.

During the ‘80s and early ‘90s, as a production executive and producer, in addition to his work with VRP, he supervised over a dozen movies including Diner, Pink Floyd: The Wall, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and The Year of Living Dangerously for studios including MGM, Orion, Columbia, Warner Bros and New Line.  He co-wrote and co-produced the Playstation game, WarGames, based on the MGM movie, and produced the PC game Big Brother, based on George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, for which he acquired all interactive rights from the Orwell estate.

From 1996 until 2002, John was the Co-founder and C.E.O. of Talkie, Inc., an internet technology startup that pioneered intelligent conversational animated avatars for online marketing, brand building, lead generation, customer service and training. Clients included Sprint, Intel, and Scottrade.

His speaking engagements include the National Association of Business Economics, Johns Hopkins University, Communications University of China, the Long Beach Community Foundation, the 2010 Autodesk Education Summit at SIGGRAPH, and the Association of Film Commissioners International.  He delivered the 2009 commencement speech at Chicago's Tribeca-Flashpoint Academy.

John has served on the National Policy Roundtable for Americans for the Arts, and on the Chancellor’s Entertainment Advisory Board for the California State University.  As an educator, he serves as an Adjunct Faculty member for Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College of Public Policy, and for the University of Santa Monica.  He blogs for the Huffington Post and Animation World Network on media education and the impact of digital on the media/entertainment sector.

John holds a B.A. magna cum laude from Amherst College, and a M.A. in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica. Raised in New York and Paris, he is a dedicated photographer and an avid cook.