Chief, Amazon Studios

Jennifer Salke

Jennifer Salke is the Head of Amazon Studios. She oversees of all aspects of television and film development as well as production for Amazon’s Global entertainment division. This includes implementing an overall long-term content strategy for both units along with overseeing the short-term goals of launching upcoming series and films as well as ongoing support of current series. Upon Salke joining the Amazon team, the studio signed the ReFRame agreement – supporting a formal action plan to further gender parity in the media industry.

Prior to Amazon, Salke was President of NBC Entertainment, a title she had held since July 2011. At NBC, Salke was responsible for comedy development, drama development, current programming, casting, and diversity programming initiatives, as well as the entirety of Universal Television operations, which included parallel divisions of development, programming and casting. In January 2018, she added oversight of business affairs and production for scripted programming to her purview.

Salke reported directly into NBC Chairman Robert Greenblatt and oversaw the development and cultivation of more than 25 scripted series for the network each season as well as the development and production of more than 20 series for the studio.

Salke’s strong relationships with creators and writers fostered some of the biggest scripted successes on NBC in years, including last season’s breakout drama phenomenon This Is Us, which was the #1 new show of the season and earned a prestigious Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Drama Series – the first broadcast show to earn a nomination in that category since 2011. Salke was also a driving force behind Dick Wolf’s hugely successful Chicago franchise, a huge asset to NBC’s primetime lineup, as well as the popular and powerful dramas Shades of Blue and The Blacklist.

Additionally, Salke brought Superstore and The Good Place to the network, where they’ve established a foothold of critically acclaimed comedies on Thursday night, including the Golden Globe nominated revival of Will & Grace. At the studio, she oversaw the development of several award-winning shows, including Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and The Mindy Project, and shepherded high-profile projects including the Emmy Award winner Master of None and Golden Globe winner Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Throughout the entertainment industry, Salke has used her leadership to create meaningful inroads toward diversity, while at NBC, Salke launched Female Forward, an initiative focused on providing emerging female directors a path to break through in the television industry with the goal of facilitating gender parity within the field.

Prior to joining NBC Entertainment, Salke served as Executive Vice President of Creative Affairs at Twentieth Century Fox Television. During her tenure at Twentieth Century Fox, the studio enjoyed an incredible run, highlighted by her development and championing of the hit series Glee and Modern Family in one season.

In 2002, Salke joined Twentieth Century Fox as Senior Vice President of Drama Development, where she was instrumental in the creation of several hits, including the long-running Bones and Prison Break. She began her career at Aaron Spelling Productions in the early 1990s, where she first worked with Greenblatt (who was then at Fox) on such seminal series as the original Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place, among the many other series Spelling produced at that time.

A board member for the Los Angeles chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters, Salke also acts as an ambassador for the non-profit Operation Smile. Salke and her husband, Bert, who is President of Fox 21 Television Studios, reside in Los Angeles and have three children: twin daughters Kate and Georgia, and son Henry.