Leanna Bonamici | Christian Sesma | Sharon Bell | Carole Sumner Krechman | Cheryl Blythe | Christiane Joubert
Sharon Bell
Business Affairs
Ms. Bell has fifteen years of diverse legal experience in the entertainment industry. She is currently a business affairs consultant at Media Strategies International where she recently handled the development and production legal on several Hallmark Hall of Fame television movies (for CBS), including “The Lost Valentine,” “ November Christmas,” and coming soon, “Beyond The Blackboard” airing April 24, 2011.
Ms. Bell was an associate at CBS Paramount Network Television in their Legal Affairs department covering such shows as “Numb3rs,” NCIS,” “Aliens,” and several projects in development. Prior to CBS she was a Vice President at both NBC Universal Television Studio and USA Cable Entertainment, Business Affairs where she structured, negotiated and closed high level development deals for network and cable, primetime, shows, and once each show was green lit, handled the corresponding talent deals and the shows in production, such as “Monk” starring Tony Shalhoub, “Kojak” starring Ving Rhames, and “Battlestar Galactica,”.
Ms. Bell started her entertainment law career with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), continued on to become a business affairs executive at a top talent agency, International Creative Management (ICM), and segued to Director, Business and Legal Affairs for PAX-TV. Because Ms. Bell has worked on all sides of the deal, she has a unique perspective of the issues and concerns of all the parties at the negotiation table. Ms. Bell is an initial Advisory board member of the National Entertainment and Media Law Institute at Southwestern University School of Law; regularly sits on the panel for Career Day at her law school; is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Science; and is VP/Secretary on the board of the Palm Springs Women in Film & Television.