Amy Entelis
Amy Entelis ’79JRN is executive vice president for talent, CNN Originals, and creative development for CNN Worldwide, where she leads the network’s premium long-form storytelling efforts and oversees talent strategy across its global platforms. Since joining CNN in 2012, Entelis has built and grown CNN Originals into an internationally recognized portfolio, which has earned more than 120 awards and 450 nominations, including CNN’s first Academy Award® for Navalny.
For CNN Original Series, Entelis has overseen more than 100 original, multipart series, including the Peabody and 13-time Emmy® Award winning Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown; the five-time Emmy® Award-winning United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell; This is Life with Lisa Ling; and the Emmy® Award-nominated "Decades Series": The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties, The Nineties, The 2000s, and The 2010s, executive produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman. In 2021, Entelis established the Searching For travelogue with Searching for Italy, followed by Searching for Mexico in 2023, Searching for Spain in 2025, and Searching for France in 2026. The franchise has been honored with three Primetime Emmy® Awards and 12 nominations, winning Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special for three consecutive years.
For CNN Films, she has acquired, commissioned, or executive produced more than 70 feature and short films, 40% of which were directed by female filmmakers. Select titles include the Oscar®, BAFTA, PGA, and duPont-Columbia Award-winning, Navalny (dir. Daniel Roher); I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not (dir. Marina Zenovich); Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid (dir. Matt Tyrnauer); Prime Minister (dir. Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz) about Jacinda Ardern's unexpected rise and time as New Zealand's leader; the BAFTA and PGA Award-winning Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which CNN Films acquired with DC Studios, Warner Bros. Pictures, and HBO; the Emmy® Award winning Little Richard: I Am Everything (dir. Lisa Cortés); The Last Movie Stars (dir. Ethan Hawke) about the lives and careers of actors and humanitarians Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman; Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (dir. Morgan Neville); Three Identical Strangers (dir. Tim Wardle); John Lewis: Good Trouble (dir. Dawn Porter); Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice; the two-time Academy Award® nominated, RBG (dir. Betsy West and Julie Cohen); Apollo 11 (dir. Todd Douglas Miller); and Blackfish (dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite).
Entelis has played a key role in expanding the creative scope of the network, championing new voices and pioneering innovative nonfiction formats and cultural events. Under her leadership, CNN launched its first comedy panel series, Have I Got News For You, hosted by Roy Wood Jr., and its first long form journalism series, The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper, which has earned five Emmy® Awards and 18 nominations. In 2025, she spearheaded CNN’s historic live telecast of George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s Good Night, and Good Luck, marking the first-ever live broadcast of a Broadway production.
As head of talent for CNN Worldwide, Entelis has been instrumental in the network’s most significant hires and continues to cultivate and mentor the journalists whose work defines CNN's global newsroom.
Entelis began her career in television journalism at ABC News as a producer for 20/20 and later for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Recruited by ABC News President Roone Arledge for her first management role, she was charged with diversifying the network and created its first coordinated system for identifying, recruiting, and developing on-air talent. Over her three-decade tenure, Entelis cultivated and managed talent for the network’s most high-profile news programs, including Good Morning America, World News Tonight, Nightline, and 20/20.
A graduate of Vassar College, Entelis received a Master of Science degree in journalism from Columbia University. She is a member of the Board of Visitors for Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and the Board of Directors for the Peabody Awards.