For the past 15 years, Julie Ann Crommett has made it her life’s mission to bring more inclusion, community, and social change to the entertainment industry. She began her career at NBCUniversal, managing diversity programs behind the camera, including Writers on the Verge and Directing Fellowship. She then landed at Google, where she first became its Diversity Program Manager and, shortly after, Chief Entertainment Industry Educator, leading the company’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts in Latin America.
In 2017, she was vice president of multicultural audience engagement at The Walt Disney Studios, contributing to projects such as Charm, Soul, coconut palm, Raya and the last dragonas well as black panther and West Side History. In partnership with Disney CEO Bob Iger, he launched and co-chaired the company’s first Creative Inclusion Council dedicated to increasing inclusion and accountability in Disney’s creative efforts.
But, as “an entrepreneur by spirit and personality,” Crommett says she always hoped to start her own production company to increase visibility and inclusivity in storytelling.
“I wrote that goal in my original LinkedIn bio when I was 22,” Crommett shares. “By 2021, Iger was leaving, I moved back to Georgia during the pandemic to be with my family and help my mom and I wanted to stay. I had built what I came to build at Disney and I thought, ‘This is the time to realize the dream I had set out and remind myself of my own ambitions.’”
Crommett founded Collective Moxie in April 2021, an Atlanta-based consulting group that helps businesses and nonprofits, large and small, create responsible DEI strategy, narrative change work, and build an audience and engagement. consistent community commitment. Outside of the Moxie Collective, the You got Moxie! The podcast was born in September 2024. The podcast, now available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTubePandora, iHeart Radio and others – Featuring in-depth conversations with voices from a wide range of industries, including entertainment, technology, academia and business, as they explore the practical steps and strategies behind making meaningful change.
“We believe that every person at some point in their life should see themselves, their experiences and the people in their lives on the screen in some way, because that is not only affirming for yourself, but it also begins to change the perceptions of how we see. each other,” says Crommett, a proud Puerto Rican and Cuban American. “You got Moxie! It is our first foray into personal content production as part of that mission.”
You got Moxie! debuted its first episode with “You Got Revolution!” with award-winning host, producer, writer and public speaker Baratunde Thurston. Subsequent episodes featured guests such as Elizabeth & Minnie Publishing co-founder Jeanell English (“You’ve Got Catalyst!”), Annenberg Inclusion Initiative Program Director Katherine Peiper (“You’ve Got Data!”), Founder and creator of The Black List Franklin. Leonard (“You’ve got story magic!”), lighting cinematographer at Pixar Animation Studios Danielle Feinberg (“You’ve got tech magic!”), and former head of inclusive content at Lionsgate and founder of Kas Kas Productions, Kamala Avila -Salmon (“You have Pioneer!”).
“Throughout my career, I have met some very interesting people who have done impactful work and made positive changes in their company, industry, and community, but whose stories have not yet been shared,” Crommett notes. “All of the people in the first season are people I’ve known for many years, and I learned something new about each and every one of them being on this show. What that tells me is that it’s all about the questions we ask each other, and often we don’t ask the right questions to really know someone’s story.”
For example, during his time at Google, Crommett met Feinberg, a visual effects supervisor on turning red and lighting artist in various capacities on Pixar films dating back to The life of an insectwho advocated for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and equitable representation in STEM fields.
“While we were talking on the show, I had no idea about his origin story,” Crommett says of Feinberg. “I knew of her passion, but on the show, she started describing how she was one of the only women in her computer science courses and how that gave her that ‘Ah ha!’ moment.”
Crommett goes on to share how Feinberg talked about that moment at a math and science camp he was speaking at. Speaking to two young people about how much math and science were part of the work she did in animation, Feinberg told Crommett: “It was the most magical thing. As I talked about all the math and science behind our movies… I could see the excitement in their eyes as I explained how this math and science came together to create some of their favorite movies. That was my first foray into understanding that I had a little bit of power to change what I had gone through in college.”
Crommett adds: “In an interview I did with financial expert Vanessa Roanhorse, who works with Native and Indigenous values at her company Roanhorse Consulting, she said a quote that I really want to put on a t-shirt: ‘We need to get to the place where we celebrate victories. what happens next door.’ And what she meant by this is that we are often in a place where we focus so much on what we are trying to do in creating change, that we forget that there are generations of people who will come after us to finish the job that we we have done. began. You may not live to see the results of your work. But it is necessary to think about that continuum. It’s about working together. That resonated in my bones.”
And what better way to engage the next generation of changemakers in the conversation about diversity and inclusion than to offer a podcast that catalogs the experiences of those who came before listeners.
“It’s the scariest, most amazing thing I’ve ever done,” Crommett says. “I’m not a father, but I’m a business father and there are similarities. You learn a lot about yourself along the way. There always comes a point where you wonder, ‘What was I thinking?’ But then you see or experience the impact of what you have created and it is all worth it. And all those feelings can happen in one day.”
According to Crommett, a leader in the animation industry who is putting Roanhorse’s words into practice is Raya and the last dragonDirector Carlos López Estrada, whom Crommett interviews in his podcast episode, “You Got Wonder!”
“Carlos said that one of the things he reflected on when he came to Disney was that he looked around and thought there was very little representation in the animation industry,” Crommett notes. “He says, ‘Now I’m in a leadership position and I can do something about it. But how do I do it responsibly? So, he thought, there have to be people who have been thinking about this and who can give me guidance and advice so that I can do it in a way that has positive benefit rather than unknowingly causing harm.”
And thanks to the efforts of López Estrada, from the costume design to the fight sequences, the small details in Raya and the last dragon Not only do they represent Asian culture, but they specifically show what can happen when people ask important questions and seek informed answers rather than simply making necessary decisions solely out of convenience or ease.
“That’s what this podcast is about,” Crommett shares. “It’s about what ‘leadership’ really means, what it means to be an inclusive leader, a thoughtful leader and someone who helps move something forward. What Carlos was demonstrating stripe It was humility. I didn’t need to have all the answers. “I needed to ask questions, especially in a field as collaborative as animation.”
For animation and VFX workers and fans of the industry, Crommett recommends also listening to the first episode of the podcast with Baratunde Thurston, who launched his own AI podcast called Life with Machines.
“He and I got into a pretty deep conversation about how to make change in an era of change,” Crommett says. “And we talk about the humanity that is necessary in that change. The other episode I would highly recommend is my interview with Lionsgate’s Kamala Avila-Salmon. She talks about the tool she built called spark of historywhich is essentially a Buzzfeed quiz for content creators of any kind, storytellers of any kind, to help them think about inclusivity in their content. It is very accessible and very practical.”
Although a release date has not yet been confirmed, You got Moxie! It is confirmed for a season 2 that will premiere early this year (2025). In the upcoming season, Crommett says his guests and interviews will delve into the topics of disability and accessibility.
“I highly recommend listening,” Crommett says of the upcoming season. “It’s an area and a thought process that people often just don’t think about in the process of making changes. I think it will be essential for us to move forward.”
She adds: “For people reading this, I would love to see more people from the animation, gaming, and VFX spaces come to the show, but maybe from some other angles. I have been on the board of Women in Animation for eight years and feel strongly about the global nature of that organization in our industry. “I really want to expand this conversation about change and leadership to other places and spaces other than just the US, because we definitely need to learn from each other globally.”
Victoria Davis is a full-time freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. He has reported on numerous stories, from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
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