Skydance Television Bolsters Development & Production Team With Shelley Zimmerman & David Wolkis Hires

EXCLUSIVE: Skydance Television is bolstering its executive ranks. The Foundation and Reacher studio has hired Shelley Zimmerman and David Wolkis.

Zimmerman joins as EVP, Head of Development and Wolkis becomes SVP, Physical Production.

It comes a year after Matt Thunell, the former Netflix exec who had a hand in the success of Stranger Things, replaced Bill Bost as President of Skydance Television.

Zimmerman was most recently President of Television Bad Attitude Entertainment, The Morning Show and Bates Motel exec producer Kerry Ehrin’s company. Before that, she was EVP, of the Live-Action Studio for Awesomeness and Nickelodeon, where she produced series including Netflix’s Trinkets and Hulu’s Pen15. She was also SVP, Scripted Programming at Warner Horizon where she oversaw such series as Pretty Little Liars on Freeform and TNT’s Dallas, and President of Television Development at Tollin/Robbins Productions, where she developed Smallville, One Tree Hill and What I Like About You.

She will be responsible for sourcing material, developing and packaging projects, maintaining oversight of overall deals, and shepherding series through all phases of production. She reports to Thunell.

Wolkis, meanwhile, served as EVP Head of Physical Production at Annapurna Pictures where he oversaw production across Annapurna’s television and features. He previously worked for more than 20 years at WarnerMedia, where he oversaw production of all scripted and unscripted originals across the three cable brands –TNT, TBS and truTV including late-night, game shows and series.

Wolkis will help oversee physical production for Skydance Television’s slate of series, including production finance and post-production. Wolkis will report to Drew Brown, EVP of Physical Production.

Skydance Television also produces Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Condor, Cross, The Big Door Prize and FUBAR, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first ever scripted television series.