BRIC Foundation Hosts Talent & Innovation Summit to Promote Inclusion, Diversity in Creative Leadership

By Terry Flores

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The BRIC Foundation will hold its first Talent & Innovation Summit on Saturday, Feb. 9, at the Hungarian Cultural Alliance in downtown Los Angeles. The daylong event features talks by thought leaders and industry disrupters from throughout the entertainment industry.

BRIC — which stands for Break, Reinvent, Impact and Change — was created by Illumination VP of talent Alison Mann, Luma Pictures’ head of creative affairs Jill Gilbert and producer Nicole Hendrix with the goal of finding new access points for women and members of underrepresented groups to rise in creative leadership and enable cultural change by empowering talent.

“We know the journey for change doesn’t happen overnight, and sometimes the fight can be exhausting. If we are working together not only as an industry, but as a community, the more united we stand on the importance of representation, the better our chances are of being heard,” Mann, Gilbert and Hendrix said in a statement. “Our goal for this summit is to have industry leaders and content creators come together and brainstorm solutions to develop access points into the industry for women and people from underrepresented groups. We hope to leave the summit with actionable items that attendees can take back to their organizations.”

Summit speakers include “Book of Life” director Jorge Gutierrez, “The Lego Movie 2″ animation director Trisha Gum, and Karen Horne, senior VP of programming talent development and inclusion for NBCUniversal as well as producers Monica Lago-Kaytis, Latifa Ouaou and Jasmine Jaisinghani, screenwriter Sameer A. Gardezi and producer and VP of Women in Animation Jinko Gotoh.

“WIA is so pleased to partner with BRIC on this inaugural summit and join forces with them to further our mission to promote diversity and inclusion in animation and our goal of hitting 50-50 by 2025,” Gotoh said. “There has never been a better time than now to diversify our storytelling and give opportunities to the next generation of filmmakers.”

Other speakers include executive producer of Maggie Malone, SVP of creative for Illumination Zaid Al-Asady, EVP of development for Sony Animation Karen Toliver, Abrams Artists Agency literary agent Karen Kirkland and artist lead for Sony Animation Miguel Jiron.

Summit sponsors are Illumination, Sony Pictures Animation, Walt Disney Animation, Luma Pictures, Nickelodeon, Armed Mind, Snap, PSYOP and .

Tickets are $85 and are available at EventBrite .