Tendo Nagenda is leaving his position at Netflix, where he served as VP of Original Films for the past four years. Nagenda’s last day on the streamer will be September 1, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Nagenda’s exit comes as Netflix looks to streamline its film operations. Under film chief Scott Stuber, Kira Goldberg and Ori Marmar will now run the studio’s film team, which handles the streamer’s big-budget features. In 2021, the two were elevated to run a team focused on the development and production of big-budget films.
Elsewhere on Netflix’s film team, Niija Kuykendall, who joined the company in 2021, heads a features group focused on medium-sized film, while Netflix veteran Lisa Nishimura heads indie film.
Nagenda joined Netflix in 2018 from Disney, where he worked on modest-budget features like Queen of Katwe and major tentpoles like the live-action versions of Dumbo and Mulan. While at Netflix, Nagenda worked on the streamer’s splashier fare, such as Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods and Charlize Theron’s action vehicle The Old Guard, which the streamer has a sequel to.
“Tendo joined the company four years ago and helped build our studio film team, which delivered films such as The Harder They Fall, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, The Old Guard, Da 5 Bloods and Hustle. He was integral in our evolution from acquiring and licensing films to making films ourselves. We wish him the best for the future,” Stuber said in a statement.
Ofer Ngenda: “I am honored to be a small part of a film team that has led the way in Oscar nominations three years in a row, to become the world’s largest filmmaker by any metric, to lead an industry through an epidemic. , and become the standard bearer for representation and inclusion both in front of and behind the camera. I wish Netflix would continue to persevere and strive to take big leaps and tell the big and beloved stories that need to be told. I decided that.”
The change in Netflix’s film team comes as the streamer continues to restructure, having already gone through several rounds of layoffs. 300 employees were laid off in June, before 150 were cut in May. Earlier, many full-time employees and contractors in Netflix’s editorial and marketing departments were let go.
In a June 23 memo to employees, Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings noted that he wished the company was “restructuring the business more slowly” due to expected revenue growth.