After a nearly four-year run, Lionsgate‘s leader of inclusion and diversity efforts at its film division is stepping away from the role and pacting with the studio for a producing deal.Kamala Avila-Salmon — who left Facebook to join Lionsgate as its Motion Picture Group’s head of inclusive content in October 2020 — is launching her own banner, Kas Kas Productions. In the transition, Avila-Salmon has inked a two-year, first-look feature film deal with Lionsgate.“We are thrilled for Kamala and I feel proud to support her future as a filmmaker. When Kamala shared with me her dream of producing films, we set out to develop an opportunity that would not only nurture her growth toward this personal goal, but also use her strengths to help us continue creating commercial, culturally relevant films for Lionsgate’s slate – a win-win,” stated Adam Fogelson, chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group.Succeeding Avila-Salmon will be Tayanna Todd, who has spent three-plus years based in Santa Monica at the studio in multiple roles related to inclusive content and business strategy. Todd earlier held a role as a coordinator, original programming at Showtime on projects like Halo and Ripley and worked as an executive assistant at CBS.As part of its initiatives, the Inclusive Content group helped develop the studio’s inclusion tool, Story Spark, which allows writers (inside and outside of Lionsgate) to take an interactive questionnaire that helps identify ways and ideas to broaden accessibility within a script.Avila-Salmon added, “I am also enormously grateful to Lionsgate for nurturing the Inclusive Content team and supporting our work over the last four years. Tayanna has been an integral part of that work since day one and I could not be prouder of her as she leads the next chapter of the Inclusive Content team within the Motion Picture Group.”
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