How Did I Get Here?

Nancy Kanter

General manager, executive vice president for original programming, Disney Junior Worldwide
from
  • Education
  • Wellington C. Mepham High School, Bellmore, N.Y., class of 1970
  • Hunter College, New York, class of 1974
  • Work Experience
  • 1974–83
    Film editor
  • 1984–86
    Adjunct professor of film production, Hunter College
  • 1984–93
    Independent film producer
  • 1993–98
    Executive producer, Children’s Television Workshop
  • 1999–2001
    President, Bluecow.com
  • 2001–13
    Senior vice president for original programming, general manager, Playhouse Disney U.S./Disney Junior Worldwide
  • 2013–Present
    GM, EVP for original programming, Disney Junior Worldwide
  • Life Lessons
  • “You can be strong, you can be authoritative, but you can also be nice. Make people want to be in a meeting with you.”
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  • “Your only guidepost is what your instincts tell you.”
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  • “When I think, Huh, why didn’t I think of that?, that’s a good indication that a pitch is worth pursuing.”
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  • Left, with sister Lindsay, 1960
  • “My dad was an advertising executive, and he put me and my two sisters in a national Johnson floor wax commercial. I wound up getting residuals, which I never saw until I was in college, and had this nice little nest egg.”
  • A poster for 1981’s The Loveless, starring Willem Dafoe, which Kanter edited
  • “We were screening the first cut of Dog Day Afternoon for Al Pacino, Sidney Lumet, and the studio. Waiting for a cab, I hear this giant crunch, and a bus ran over a film can. This was the one and only copy of this film. I thought, I’m going to get on a plane to Mexico. But those cans were heavy for a reason: The reels were bent, but the film was fine.”
  • In Hawaii with her children, 1994
  • “A guy with a fortune and a love for children’s television found me and said, ‘Do you want to start a kids’ animated educational website?’ Then the market collapsed, so they canceled the IPO. I have lots of worthless stock.”
  • “I took a film class with Renata Adler, the New Yorker critic, at her fabulous town house. She would invite her fancy friends—Richard Avedon, one of the Rothschilds—and we would have these sophisticated conversations. I wanted that life.”
  • With her high school sweetheart and now husband, Joe, 1974
  • “I had success getting several properties developed and optioned but no success in getting them made. Then I pitched an ABC Afterschool Special and produced it. And then I was a producer.”
  • With Minnie Mouse, 2013
  • “Mickey and the Roadster Racers will launch next year. We have educational messages, but what’s most important is that kids attach to the story and characters so that those messages come through organically. It’s my job to make sure they’re there.”