Lisa Takeuchi Cullen To Be Next President Of WGA East As Michael Winship Departs
01.08.2023 - 16:09
/ deadline.com
Lisa Takeuchi Cullen will be the next president of the WGA East, succeeding Michael Winship, who is not seeking re-election.
Cullen, who is running unopposed in the guild’s upcoming elections, will be its third female president and the first person of color to hold the post, starting next month. She currently serves as VP of the guild’s Film/TV/Streaming sector.
Winship said in a statement today that his decision not to run again “was made right from the start two years ago when I was asked to return to the presidency. Despite having already served five terms as president, from 2007-2017, I agreed to run again in 2021 to help work out issues the guild was facing in terms of constitutional revisions and other membership concerns, but I did say then that it only would be for two years.”
Takeuchi Cullen’s bio on the guild’s website notes that prior to the ongoing writers strike, she was developing several drama series as part of an overall deal with Universal TV. She’s developed drama pilots for Apple, Netflix, ABC, NBC, CBS, A&E and Warner Bros., and her pilot The Ordained was produced by CBS. A graduate of the WGAW Showrunner Training Program, she has served as co-executive producer on NBC’s The Endgame and was a writer and consulting producer on Law & Order: SVU.
An Asian-American, her guild bio notes that she “works to represent marginalized writers as co-chair of the Committee for Inclusion and Equity and founder of the Salon network of affinity groups. She also started and runs Diverse Writers of the East, databases of underrepresented WGA East and pre-WGA writers.”
In 2020, she received the Richard B. Jablow Award for her service to the guild. She previously worked as a foreign correspondent and staff writer for