We are pleased to invite you to attend Committee of 100’s Conversations—”Recollections, Pioneers, and Heroes” featuring Janet Yang, a pioneer in film and entertainment and a Committee of 100 Member.

Janet Yang is an Emmy and Golden Globe-winning Hollywood producer, was the President of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, is a keynote speaker, and a trailblazer and advocate for the AAPI community. She came to prominence through her collaboration with Steven Spielberg on Empire of the Sun, followed by partnerships with Oliver Stone and Lisa Henson. Her extensive Film and TV credits include The Joy Luck Club, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Shanghai Calling, and High Crimes. She is a member of the Committee of 100.

Peter Young, Chair of the Conversations Initiative and Committee of 100 New York Regional Chair and Board Member, will be the moderator.

Janet Yang
Emmy and Golden Globe-Winning Hollywood Producer

Janet Yang recently completed three one-year terms as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and ended her tenure on June 30, 2025.

Yang has worked with some of the most formidable filmmakers and talent in the world. She came to prominence through her collaboration with Steven Spielberg on Empire of the Sun (Warner Bros). That was followed by a long partnership with multiple Academy Award-winner Oliver Stone—where she served as Executive Producer on the iconic The Joy Luck Club (Disney), and as a Producer of The People vs. Larry Flynt (Columbia Pictures). Her most recent credit is as an Executive Producer on the Oscar-nominated animated feature, Over the Moon. Based on her original story, the film was directed by legendary animator Glen Keane and released on Netflix in 2020.

Among her many other credits are: the Sundance award-winning Dark Matter (Universal Pictures) with Meryl Streep; The Weight of Water (Lionsgate) directed by Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow with Academy award winner Sean Penn; Savior (Lionsgate) with Dennis Quaid; South Central (Warner Bros.) directed by Steve Anderson; High Crimes (Fox) with Morgan Freeman; a Chinese adaptation of the acclaimed Disney franchise High School Musical; cult favorites Zero Effect, by Jake Kasdan, and Shanghai Calling with China Film Group. Yang won an Emmy and Golden Globe Award for the HBO movie Indictment: The McMartin Trial.

Most recently, Yang was named one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood” by the Hollywood Reporter, Variety’s Power of Women 2023, and was featured on the Forbes 2024 “50 over 50” List. Yang began her career by running the first distribution company to market Chinese films into North America. She also brokered the reintroduction of American cinema to the Chinese marketplace on behalf of several studios after a decades-long hiatus.

Committed to fostering global understanding, Yang is a co-founder of Gold House, the nonprofit collective of influential Asian cultural leaders; a long-standing member of the Committee of 100, an organization of the most prominent Chinese-Americans; and an advisory board member of Asia Society Southern California where she also chairs its highly regarded U.S.-Asia Entertainment Summit. Yang serves on the IMAX China Board, the Forbes APEX VIP Founding Advisory Board, and the board of Unified Youth, a mental-health-focused organization.

Yang is the first Asian American president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and also has a pillar dedicated to her inside the Renzo Piano-designed Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. In April 2025, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures established the Janet Yang Endowment, honoring her historic tenure as President of the Academy. The endowment will support programming that explores and elevates the contributions of filmmakers from historically underrepresented communities, with a special emphasis on Asian American and Pacific Islander artists.

Yang holds a B.A. from Brown University in Chinese studies and an M.B.A. from Columbia University. She was appointed as a Presidential Fellow at Loyola Marymount University and recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree in Humane Letters from Bowdoin College.

Peter Young
CEO and President of Young & Partners;
Committee of 100 New York Regional Chair and Board Member

Peter Young is CEO of Young & Partners, a boutique investment banking firm focused on the life science and chemical industries. He manages the firm and is actively involved in client transactions and financings. Under his leadership, Young & Partners has established and maintained its position as a highly regarded firm serving the corporate strategy, M&A, restructuring and financing needs of clients worldwide. He was previously head of industry groups at Salomon Brothers, Schroders and Lehman Brothers, a senior private equity executive with J.H. Whitney & Co. and a senior member of Bain & Co., the corporate strategy firm.

Young received a BA in Economics from Yale, an MS in Accounting from NYU, and MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated with Distinction as a Baker Scholar. He is a CPA and a Chartered Global Management Accountant. He serves on a number of boards of directors, both corporate and non-profit and is a board member of Société de Chimie Industrielle, a leading life science and chemical industry non-profit organization and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Pharmaceutical Executive.