Film Academy promotes Shawn Finnie to EVP of Member Relations and Awards

Finnie helped launch the Academy Dialogues: It Starts with Us series that debuted last Oscar season

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has promoted Shawn Finnie to Executive Vice President, Member Relations and Awards, Academy COO Christine Simmons announced today.  Finnie will report directly to Simmons. 

Finnie will lead engagement and outreach initiatives for the organization’s global membership of more than 10,000 artists, filmmakers and executives and oversee Academy Awards processes for submissions, rules and voting.  He will lead a team of more than 20 staff and work closely with the Academy’s Office of Representation, Inclusion and Equity and the Branch Executive Committees on member representation and inclusion efforts. 

“Shawn is a unique and innovative leader.  He brings to this position the collaborative, solution-oriented and engaging style that has driven results throughout his time at the Academy,” said Simmons.  “His efforts to foster greater representation and connectivity among the global membership, expand how we serve our members and strengthen relationships within the greater film community have been and will continue to be invaluable to the organization and the industry as a whole.”

An Academy staff member for the past eight years, Finnie most recently held the position of Senior Director, Member Relations and Awards.  In this role, he was responsible for member outreach and engagement, industry relations and amplifying the Academy’s initiatives in representation and inclusion.  He oversaw branch committees and membership initiatives for Actors, Casting Directors, Marketing and Public Relations, Artists’ Representatives and Associates.  Finnie played a key role in such events as the Governors Awards and the Academy Women’s Luncheon and led efforts to deliver a personal and seamless experience for each Oscar nominee.  Last summer, as part of the Academy Aperture 2025 initiative, he also helped launch “Academy Dialogues: It Starts with Us,” a conversation series focused on race, ethnicity, gender, history, opportunity and the art of filmmaking. 

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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