With coffee in hand, conference-goers entered the large ballroom for the Friday morning keynote with Sherry Lansing, who broke personal and professional barriers to become the first woman to head a major motion picture company.  Lansing spoke of her German-born mother, Margo, who didn’t expect her daughter to have any career, let alone run a multi-billion dollar business. 

Lansing rebelled against the notion that she had to sacrifice her own ambition for a husband or family and instead dedicated herself to making it in the movie business, which, after a few bumps, bruises and commercials with Tom Selleck, she obviously did.  The joys of family life did not escape Lansing forever. Indeed, after achieving professional fulfillment, she found time in her life for a family.

Attendees leaned forward to hear every word Lansing spoke about her friendship with Tom Cruise; difficulties producing Fatal Attraction, The Accused and Mission Impossible; and the future of marketing movies, which she believes is more important today than the movie itself.  There are rare exceptions to this rule such as Juno or Little Miss Sunshine, but Hollywood execs strongly believe ‘if we can’t market it, we can’t make it.’

After thoughtfully addressing audience inquiries, Lansing left us with two philosophical beliefs:  Trust Your Gut and Enjoy the Process.