Taylor Trotter August 1st, 2023 - 10:02 PM
Lisa Takeuchi Cullen has been elected the next president of the WGA East guild as Michael Winship doesn’t want a re-election. Cullen will be the third woman to be president and the first person of color to hold the post starting next month. Cullen’s current position is VP of the guild’s Film/TV/Streaming sector, and in 2020, she acquired the Richard B Jablow Award for her service to the guild.
Her bio on the guild’s website regarding her being an Asian-American states that she “works to represent marginalized writers as co-chair of the Committee for Inclusion and Equity and founder of the Salon network of affinity groups. She also started and runs Diverse Writers of the East, databases of underrepresented WGA East and pre-WGA writers.”
Winship also made clear why his decision to not try to reelection”was made right from the start two years ago when I was asked to return to the presidency. Despite having already served five terms as president, from 2007-2017, I agreed to run again in 2021 to help work out issues the guild was facing in terms of constitutional revisions and other membership concerns, but I did say then that it only would be for two years.”
Cullen is a graduate of the WGAW Showrunner Training Program program as she served as a co-executive producer on NBC’s The Endgame and was a writer and consulting producer on Law & Order: SVU. Cullen’s bio on the guild’s website states before the writer’s strike, that she was developing various dramas for Apple, CBS, Netflix, NBC, A&E, and Warner Bros to uphold the deal she has with Universal TV. One of her pilot episodes The Ordained is getting promoted by CBS.
Cullen posted today on X about her running for WGA East president:
My name is Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, and I am running uncontested for President of @WGAEast.
I will be the first person of color and the third woman to lead our 72-year-old union.
I am a TV writer, author and former journalist.
Here is why I would like your vote. pic.twitter.com/HMLsihw3X2
— WGA East vp Lisa Takeuchi Cullen (@LisaCullen) August 1, 2023
