Page 59 - Powerlist 2019 - Digital Edition

Jacqueline Simmons
Executive Editor, Bloomberg LP

Jackie is the Executive Editor of the Global Business group Media, Publishing & Entertainment
at Bloomberg News. As well as managing a team of 150
reporters and editors worldwide, she is currently working
on the agenda of Bloomberg’s first Equality Summit in
New York, where she will lead discussions around issues
involving female and racial empowerment across business
lines and society.
As the sole black female in senior news management at
Bloomberg, Jackie actively promotes diversity in newsrooms
and at industry events, including at the World Economic
Forum in Davos and the Women’s Forum Global Meeting in
Deauville, France. She also informally mentors reporters
and editors across the newsroom.
She sits on Bloomberg’s EMEA Diversity Council, where
she drives its strategic diversity and inclusion agenda.
This past year, she has been involved in a project with
Diverse Media in Germany, which aims to bring diversity
and innovation into newsrooms with a focus on business
publications.
Jackie serves on the jury panel for this year’s One World
Media awards which support coverage of topics and
issues related to under-reported issues in Africa, Asia, the
Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, Russia or the
Femi Oguns Post-Soviet States.
She left Dow Jones in New York and joined Bloomberg’s
Agent, Founder and CEO of Identity Theatre Paris bureau in 1996, where she initially covered European
School consumer goods, investment banking and mergers and
acquisitions.
He founded Britain’s first black drama school because of the In 2009 she was appointed managing editor for companies
lack of roles for actors of colour – and now Femi Oguns is and in 2015 she was promoted to Executive Editor.
the man behind some of biggest names to come from these During her time at Bloomberg, she has led the Europe
shores in years. team’s coverage of the takeover battle for France’s Alstom by
Stars Wars actor John Boyega and Black Panther’s Leticia General Electric. Bloomberg broke the exclusive on a story
Wright are just two of the stars to have trained at Identity that dominated headlines in the European business media.
Theatre School and he is their proud agent. Over the past year, Jackie has participated in the Women
Femi launched the acting school in 2003 using the of the World Festival in the UK, where she was a guest
money that he had, just £200. He was an actor himself but speaker on a panel about diversity in media. She is also set
set up a school that would better serve and train potential to interview Chelsea Clinton about her latest book.
black actors into roles beyond stereotypical gangsters
and criminals. Initially working with just ten pupils, its
reputation quickly grew across the industry, and demand for
talent from his school was high. His pupils had interest from
the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and
other leading producers.
Femi is now recognised as one of the UK’s best agents,
with a clientele list that includes Malachi Kirby (Roots) and
Melanie Liburd (Game of Thrones).
Based in Hackney, he also works with Hollywood
organisation William Morris Endeavor Entertainment
and ICM, where he helps to cast black British actors in
Hollywood productions. His theatre school has since
expanded and he manages three, including one in
Birmingham. He plans to open schools in Los Angeles and
New York next.
Femi also co-runs a production company with Boyega
called Upper Rooms Productions, which produced the big-
budget Maelstrom, the sequel to Pacific Rim.
In 2017, Femi became the first agent in the UK to be
awarded a special jury prize by the British Independent Film
Award for his contribution to the British Film Industry.

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