Sandra Stern will step down as vice chairman of Lionsgate Television Group at the end of March, calling it a wrap on her executive career after 40 years of forging innovative deals and overseeing large-scale production operations.
Stern has spent the past 23 years helping to build Lionsgate TV into one of the industry’s largest suppliers of scripted and unscripted programs. She was key to the creative dealmaking that allowed Lionsgate to experiment with Matt Weiner’s “Mad Men” when AMC Networks decided to take a big swing on original scripted series in 2007. Stern did the same a few years later when Netflix bought Jenji Kohan’s adaptation of “Orange Is the New Black.”
At present Lionsgate TV delivers more than 80 TV shows annually to dozens of platforms around the world, including the Apple TV comedy “The Studio,” which won a record 13 Emmys last year, and the offbeat CBS comedy “Ghosts.” Stern led the business integration following Lionsgate’s acquisition of film and TV studio eOne in 2023, and she was the key liaison after Lionsgate acquired a majority of the busy management-production firm 3 Arts Entertainment in 2018. She also drove Lionsgate’s minority investment in U.K. talent management firm 42 in 2022.
Before joining Lionsgate in 2003, Stern worked with CEO Jon Feltheimer as a senior business executive during their respective tenures at New World Television, Sony’s Columbia TriStar Television and finally Lionsgate. Stern has been the highest-ranking woman leader at Lionsgate, having been elevated to vice chairman of its TV division in December 2022.
“Sandra has been my friend, partner and protégé for the past 40 years,” said Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer. “She is an amazing strategist with unparalleled relationships with our partners, and few people understand our business as well as she does. Sandra has been a pillar of our studio’s growth and success for 23 years. Whatever she chooses for the next phase of her career, she will remain a valued and cherished member of our Lionsgate family.”
Stern is a highly regarded in the industry as a business leader who has long been active in the industry’s social and philanthropic circles. She’s a New Yorker through and through despite many years of living on the West Coast. She’s had long ties to such organizations as UCLA School of Law (her alma mater) and its Ziffren Center, as well as Center Theatre Group, Saban Community Clinic, Jonsson Cancer Center, Rape Treatment Center, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles. She was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2025.
Stern was characteristically blunt in explaining her decision to bow out of Lionsgate. She expressed her gratitude to Feltheimer and Kevin Beggs, her longstanding partner who is chairman and chief creative officer of Lionsgate Television Group.
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“I am so grateful to Jon for the empowerment, inspiration and support he has given me throughout my career as my boss, mentor and friend. The 23 years I have spent with Jon, Kevin [Beggs] and the rest of the Lionsgate team have been the most personally and professionally rewarding for me, and the relationships I have formed and the friends I have made within my extended television family over my career made my decision to try something new a difficult one,” Stern said. “But I know that I am leaving our Television Group in an incredibly strong position, with a great slate of series, a robust creative pipeline and an exceptional team of executives to move them forward, and I am excited to explore other passions and embark on new adventures beyond the world of television.”
From Variety US