A Conversation with Jeffrey Katzenberg

JEFFREY KATZENBERG is the chief executive officer of DreamWorks Animation SKG. DreamWorks Animation was a division of DreamWorks SKG until October 2004, when it became a separate publicly traded company. Katzenberg co-founded DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen in October 1994.

Under Katzenberg's leadership, DreamWorks Animation has enjoyed a number of critical and commercial successes, including Shrek and its sequels, Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third, Madagascar, Over the Hedge, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Shark Tale, and Flushed Away. Shrek and Wallace & Gromit were each winners of the Oscar® for Best Animated Feature Film and Shrek 2 is the highest grossing animated feature film of all time. The company's newest release, Bee Movie, written, produced and starring Jerry Seinfeld, will be released Nov. 2, 2007.

Since its inception in 1994, DreamWorks has produced a number of celebrated films, including three Best Picture Academy Award® winners – American Beauty, Gladiator, and A Beautiful Mind. The studio released its first animated films in 1998 – Antz and The Prince of Egypt. Paramount Pictures acquired DreamWorks in 2006.

Prior to co-founding DreamWorks, Katzenberg served as Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios. During his tenure, the studio produced such landmark animated films as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, the only animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar®, as well as such live action hits as Good Morning, Vietnam, Three Men and a Baby, Dead Poets Society, Pretty Woman, Father of the Bride and Sister Act. Katzenberg previously served as President of Paramount Studios, where he was involved in such now-classic films as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Best Picture Academy Award® winners Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment.

Katzenberg is Chairman of the Board for the Motion Picture & Television Fund Foundation, and serves on the boards of AIDS Project Los Angeles, American Museum of the Moving Image, California Institute of the Arts, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Geffen Playhouse, Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and The Simon Wiesenthal Center.