Kathleen Kennedy has been a part of many of the greatest movies of the last 35 years. She’s been involved with almost every Steven Spielberg movie since Raiders of the Lost Ark, but also Back to the Future, The Goonies, The Sixth Sense, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, to name a few. Also, she is the president of Lucasfilm following its sale to Disney.

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Netflix’s co-founder Reed Hastings is a big name in the entertainment business, helping distribute some of the world’s most-viewed television shows over the last years.

With a background in technology and software, Hastings capitalised on the changing media consumption behaviors and created something that took the media business by storm.

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Quite probably the most influential person in Hollywood, Bob Iger presides over the industry’s largest and most influential entertainment business, the Disney brand. Add 21st Century Fox, Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and a few other things, and you have a modern-day media empire.

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Arguably the most successful film producer of all time, Kevin Feige has championed the superhero cinematic universe that has swept over Hollywood in the last decades, whether you like it or not.

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Dana Walden was a key figure in Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox TV, which she built into a powerhouse over two decades. She is also in charge of ABC Studios, ABC Entertainment, Freeform, and Hulu.

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A true household name, Oprah Winfrey is one of America’s most trusted stars. She also writes bestsellers, has her own cable network (OWN), and is involved in infinite ventures in the entertainment landscape.

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The name behind some of the biggest blockbusters of the last 30 years, J.J. Abrams, is one of the most sought-after directors and producers in all of Hollywood. He is responsible for movies like Armageddon, several Mission: Impossible installments, and a couple of Star Wars films, to name a few.

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As the creator and showrunner of Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton, Scandal, Private Practice, How to Get Away with Murder, and many other series, Shonda Rhimes has been a strong presence in Hollywood since the early 2000s and has been featured multiple times in the Times 100 Most Influential People on the World list.

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Probably the person most of us would expect to be on this list, Steven Spielberg has shaped America and the world’s pop culture with some of the most successful and influential films ever made. His presence has been a force to be reckoned with and a strong influence in Hollywood since the mid-1970s.

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The man behind blockbusters like Titanic, Terminator, and Avatar, among many others, has kept himself busy diving to the deepest point in the ocean, creating documentaries, series, producing, directing, writing, and more for a few decades now and his work is embedded in pop culture, in a similar way to Spielberg and our next entry.

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The man responsible for some of the biggest film classics, not just in the horror genre but in many others as well, didn’t even intend to go into the movie business in the first place.

As one of America’s more successful contemporary writers, Stephen King has created stories that started as bestsellers and eventually found their way into Hollywood. From Carrie, Cujo, Pet Sematary, The Shining, to Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Stand By Me, and countless others, his stories are the basis for some of the biggest blockbusters that Hollywood has ever seen.

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