AMPTP Names Greg Hessinger As Carol Lombardini's Successor; Lawyer & Ex-SAG CEO Faces Guild Contract Talks Next Year

Yahoo

25-03-2025

A year ahead of the next contract negotiations with Hollywood's most powerful guilds, the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers has its first new boss since 2009.
Greg Hessinger will take over from the retiring Carol Lombardini as president of the studios and streamers' bargaining arm, we've learned. A former Director of Labor Relations for CBS and ex-CEO/National Director of the Screen Actors Guild, the versatile Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP Chair and Managing Partner of the NYC office is set to officially assume his new gig April 14 here in Los Angeles.
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'I'm deeply honored to step into this role at the AMPTP during such a pivotal time for our industry,' Hessinger said Tuesday. 'I've spent my entire career working to create and sustain opportunity in entertainment and media, and I look forward to partnering with our member companies and union leaders to ensure the hard-working individuals who drive our industry forward can continue to create inspiring content for audiences around the world.'
Having run SAG during the mid-2000s, before the merger with AFTRA, Hessinger was described by then-guild boss Melissa Gilbert in 2005 as 'a passionate advocate for actors, one of the most creative minds in our industry and a seasoned, skilled executive and negotiator.' Before his SAG top job, Hessinger spent time in the TV trenches as the National Executive Director of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
In contrast to four-decade AMPTP staffer Lombardini, Hessinger's experience on the other side of the table reflects a reset of sorts coming off the often bitter strikes of 2023.
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During the five months since Lombardini's stepping down was made public, the net was cast wide in the search for a successor. Among the various names rumored at one point to be in the running was the AMPTP's current SVP Business Affairs Tracy Cahill. Leading the studios and streamers' side in the successful contract talks with the Animation Guild late last year, Cahill — like Hessinger — is a partner at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP. The selection of Hessinger, who has been in private practice for a decade, to run the AMPTP follows the deep relationship MSK has with the organization and as a top go-to-firm for C-suites and A-listers when it comes to labor issues.
With the power shifts in the industry during the past 10 years — the rise of Netflix, AI and prevailing MAGA political winds in the nation, plus the need to both represent and sometimes cajole the likes of Netflix's Ted Sarandos, Disney's retiring Bob Iger and Universal's Donna Langley — Hessinger's uniquely varied CV surely will prove to be his superpower.
'Greg has been on both sides of the table and knows entertainment inside and out, and is the right leader for our industry at this moment,' the AMPTP Board of Directors said today. 'He understands the priorities and values of those who make production possible and has an extensive track record of bringing parties together to find common ground. We conducted an exhaustive search process and have the utmost confidence that his experience and deep relationships will be invaluable to the work of leading the AMPTP.'
Lombardini herself added Tuesday, 'I have no doubt that Greg is the perfect leader to continue to unite our industry and promote opportunity for those who bring entertainment to life.'
To that, Hessinger will need to settle in quite quickly, as another bargaining cycle between the major Hollywood studios and the above-the-line unions is nigh. The Writers Guild of America's contract expires on May 1, 2026, and the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA agreements both expire on June 30, 2026.
Typically, informal conversations begin as early as six to nine months in advance of formal negotiations, so both parties can have a sense of the others' priorities before meeting at the bargaining table. Those scheduled windows for talks can be relatively small timeframes to hammer out some of the more complex issues. Deadline hears that the unions are looking to begin informal talks this summer and likely were waiting for the AMPTP to hammer out its succession plan before doing so.
Hessinger's first bargaining cycle leading the AMPTP will be a big one, since it will be the first set of talks following 2023's historically long dual strikes that upended the film and television industry for nearly five months and have had lasting impacts on production levels, which already were on the decline before the WGA and SAG-AFTRA hit the picket lines.
Deadline understands that, as of now, the main concern for all the above-the-line unions is jobs, jobs, jobs.
With so many members out of work, leadership is not just looking to fortify the paid positions that already exist but try to find ways to create more opportunities, especially domestically. Artificial intelligence and streaming are likely to be topics of conversation, but they are not expected to take center stage this time around, as the unions view plummeting production and employment as the ultimate priorities
This is in line with recent initiatives aimed at bringing productions back to California, including the DGA-led 'Keep California Rolling,' which is urging the state to explore more ways to rework its current jobs-based incentive program to attract production back to the state, in addition to supporting Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposal to expand the California Film & TV Tax Credit from $330M annually to $750M.
At the AMPTP since 1982, Lombardini isn't entirely exiting stage left. With institutional memory being one of the true coins of the realm in Tinseltown, the so-to-be former AMPTP president will move to an advisory position beginning next month.
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