President of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy to Speak at Web Summit

Web Summit, the "world's largest technology event" ​according to the Financial Times​, is announcing today that Kathleen Kennedy will speak in Lisbon this November. Kennedy is the producer of E.T, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones. She has also been named by Vanity Fair as "the most powerful woman in Hollywood".

Kennedy is an eight-time Academy Award®nominee, the first woman to have received the Academy's Thalberg Award, and the President of Lucasfilm. She will be in conversation with Rob Bredow, Executive Director and Head of Industrial Light & Magic, the American motion picture visual effects company founded in May 1975 by George Lucas. Bredow is also a member of the Visual Effects Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The pair will address 70,000 attendees at Web Summit on the event's Centre Stage, discussing the relationship of technology and storytelling, developments in film, Kennedy's illustrious career; and what role Industrial Light & Magic, lead by Bredow, has played in pioneering technology to deliver one of the world's most successful franchises, Star Wars, from 1975 to the hugely anticipated 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker', due for release this December.

In 2012, George Lucas handed over Lucasfilm to Kennedy to continue building the new era of Star Wars films, Star Wars trilogy: The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Rise of Skywalker, and Rogue One and Solo. Kennedy also co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall, the production company behind classics like 'Back to the Future', 'Men in Black' and 'Jurassic Park'. Her movies have made over $11bn in box offices worldwide, and include three of the highest-box office grossing films in motion picture history.

"When Vanity Fair describes you as the most powerful woman in Hollywood they do so with very good reason. In the case of Kennedy, her career speaks for itself." - s​ aid Paddy Cosgrave, CEO and co-founder of Web Summit.

"Rob Bredow is pioneering how stories are told through film and technology. We're delighted to have these two forces that have worked alongside George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to Web Summit this year". -​ Cosgrave continues.

Industrial Light & Magic is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded in May 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when Lucas began production of Star Wars.

In the words of Inc. Magazine "Web Summit is the largest technology conference in the world". Forbes says Web Summit is "the best tech conference on the planet", Bloomberg calls it "Davos for geeks", Politico "the Olympics of tech", and the Guardian "Glastonbury for geeks".

Whatever Web Summit is, it wouldn't be possible without an incredible team of nearly 200 employees based in Dublin, Lisbon, Toronto and Hong Kong; including world class engineers, data scientists, designers, producers, marketers, salespeople and more. They've disrupted an old industry by building incredible software and designing mind-blowing events - revolutionising how people and ideas come together to change the world.

As one of the world's largest gatherings of entrepreneurs, investors, multinationals and thought leaders - over 120,000 people from more than 170 countries join Web Summit in Lisbon, Collision in Toronto, and RISE in Hong Kong.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Web Summit

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