Weta Digital, a leading visual effects facility and parent company of Weta Animated, has added industry leaders Tom Staggs, Jeff Huber and Ken Kamins to its board of directors. The appointment of Staggs, Huber and Kamins reflects the continued growth and innovation of the company, which is also opening offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Prem Akkaraju, global CEO of Weta Digital, said of Staggs, Huber and Kamins, “They have established best practices at the highest levels of company management, in entertainment and digital technology. Their combined business acumen and collective depth of experience perfectly positions Weta Digital for exponential growth. Opening offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco enables storytellers to tap Weta’s production pipeline and work with concept designers, animation supervisors and other key creatives, in both the US and New Zealand. Weta Digital’s expansion comes at a time when much of the film industry is experiencing extraordinary uncertainty as we grapple with the ongoing impact of COVID-19. We’re extremely fortunate that New Zealand got in front of the curve early–it’s one of the few places in the world that has managed community transmission, where you can make a film safely, without the restrictive protocols of other markets.”
Staggs brings more than 26 years of serving at The Walt Disney Company, including 18 years of C-suite experience with the company. He was most recently Disney’s chief operating officer, having previously served for five years as chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts Worldwide and for nearly 12 years as Disney’s chief financial officer. During his time at Disney, Staggs helped shape Disney’s strategic, financial, operational, creative and brand management strategies across every segment of the company and helped drive many of Disney’s most important initiatives including the acquisitions of Cap Cities/ABC, Pixar and Marvel. Since departing Disney in late 2016, Staggs has focused on developing several new business ventures across a variety of fields. He is a board member and advisor to a number of private companies, and also serves on the board of directors of music streaming service Spotify. Before joining Disney, Staggs was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and Dain Bosworth.
“I have long admired Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh’s filmmaking talents and Weta Digital’s accomplishments in animation and visual effects. Weta Digital’s rare combination of creative talent and technology gives them a unique ability to succeed in high-end animation production,” said Staggs. “I look forward to working with Peter, Fran, Prem and the entire Weta Digital team on the animation business and further global expansion.”
Huber is the former founding CEO and vice chairman of GRAIL and previously a SVP at Google. Having spent over 13 years at Google, Huber co-founded the company’s life sciences efforts in Google X and led development and scaling for Google Maps, Google Apps and Google Ads. During his tenure as an executive at Google, Jeff oversaw 50x growth in revenues (from $1 billion to >$50 billion) and organization (1,000 to >50,000 employees) and managed a $5 billion P&L and large distributed teams (5,000+ direct-line employees). Prior to Google, Huber served as VP of architecture and systems development at eBay and SVP of engineering at Excite@Home, where he led consumer product and infrastructure development.
Kamins is the founder and CEO of Key Creatives, a management-production company. He has represented Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh since 1992, and his executive producer credits include The Hobbit Trilogy, District 9, and The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. Prior to his current position, he served as EVP of the talent agency, International Creative Management; and before that, as EVP of RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment.
Staggs, Huber and Kamins join Weta Digital board members Jackson, Walsh, Sean Parker, Joe Letteri and Akkaraju.
