Julie Ann Crommett
VP, Multicultural Audience Engagement | The Walt Disney Studios
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
This November, Pixar is releasing Coco, a film set in Mexico following a young boy as he pursues his musical dreams. For Julie Ann Crommett, The Walt Disney Studios’ vice president of multicultural audience engagement, it’s a project that she’s especially excited about.
“As a Latina, I am particularly proud of Coco,” she says. “Being Latina is all I know how to be, and with that, I am so grateful for the perspective it has afforded me. In my work, I am constantly looking at creative work from multiple viewpoints.”
Another reason she connects with it is because it tells the story of child following his dreams of a career in entertainment, not unlike herself.
“I’ve wanted to be in entertainment since I was five years old,” she says. “During childhood, I studied acting and then switched to production when I was in college. I loved having influence over a creative project, from start to finish.”
Growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta, she envisioned going to Yale. However, when it came time to go to college, the city of Boston won her over, and she decided to attend Harvard.
Upon graduation, Crommett began her career as Pixar’s production intern, working on the Wall-E DVD and Up promos. Later on, she worked at NBCUniversal, managing behind-the-camera diversity programs. That eventually led to her becoming Google’s entertainment industry educator in chief, leading efforts to diversify on-screen perceptions of computer science through storytelling. While at Google, she was recognized as The Hollywood Reporter’s “Next Gen: 35 under 35.” Now, her entertainment career is coming full circle as she returns to Pixar and The Walt Disney Studios.
Diversifying the Silver Screen
Outside of her work at The Walt Disney Studios, Julie Ann Crommett sits on the boards of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers and Women in Animation.
“Both organizations are making strides for inclusion and representation in media,” she says.
To that end, Women in Animation, she says, is changing the animation industry by providing women more opportunities to create and tell stories. However, she doesn’t think that the organization’s effects will be limited to animation alone.
“By making animation more inclusive, we really help increase representation across the industry,” she says.
