Alana Mayo CC '06 Named Co-Head of Film, Production and Development at Amazon MGM Studios

Columbia College alum Alana Mayo CC '06 has been named co-head of film, production and development at Amazon MGM Studios, sharing oversight of the studio’s film slate with Julie Rapaport.

Announced October 20 by Courtenay Valenti, the studio’s head of film, streaming and theatrical, the appointments come as Amazon MGM’s output exceeds 30 films annually. Mayo and Rapaport will each oversee approximately 15 films per year across genres and theatrical and streaming releases, reporting to Valenti. Senior production and development staff will work with both executives across the slate.

Alongside her expanded role, Mayo will continue to lead Orion Pictures, which she has overseen since 2020. Under her leadership, the label’s slate has included the Academy Award–winning films Women Talking and American Fiction, the Oscar-nominated Nickel Boys, and the comedy Bottoms. Other titles include Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, a contemporary reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s play, as well as Is God Is and Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.

“Alana has a gift for identifying and elevating bold, distinctive voices,” Valenti wrote in the announcement.

Mayo’s career has combined film development with efforts to expand opportunities for underrepresented filmmakers and audiences. Before joining Orion, she served as head of production and development at Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society. There, she helped establish a company-wide inclusion policy in partnership with WarnerMedia, with Just Mercy becoming the first film produced under the initiative. Earlier, as vice president of production at Paramount Pictures, she worked on films including A Quiet Place, Annihilation, and Fences. She also served as vice president and head of original development at Vimeo.

Raised in the Chicago suburbs, Mayo studied English and Film at Columbia, where an internship with filmmaker Lee Daniels offered an early introduction to the practical demands of filmmaking. She became Daniels’s personal assistant while he was working to complete Shadowboxer and preparing for Precious. After graduation, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue production and development.

Mayo has also maintained ties to Columbia through mentorship. She joined the University’s committee of alumni mentors in 2020 and was paired with Creative Producing alum Jungyoon Kim '20 through a School of the Arts initiative connecting recent graduates with industry professionals. She has also hosted students attending the Los Angeles edition of the Columbia University Film Festival, helping them navigate the transition from film school to Hollywood.

“The reality is it’s just perseverance, trial and error, and relationships,” Mayo told the School of the Arts in a 2022 interview, emphasizing the value of sharing experience with emerging filmmakers.