Scott Tenley, chief business officer at entertainment studio MRC, has been promoted to CEO, the company announced Thursday.
As part of the new executive structure, MRC founders Modi Wiczyk and Asif Satchu will become chairmen.
Tenley’s elevation comes seven months after he successfully negotiated MRC’s separation from Valence Media, reconstituting the company as a premier independent film and television studio. In his new role, Tenley will oversee the studio’s film, TV and non-fiction divisions, strategic partnerships, as well as all shared service functions of the company, including finance, legal, and HR.
“Scott Tenley has a hand in nearly every single deal, every single accomplishment at MRC over the past 16 years. He has blazed trails in almost every facet of our business, from selling ‘House of Cards’ to Netflix to setting up The Academy of Country Music Awards on Amazon Prime Video, to ever-evolving credit facilities, equity arrangements and beyond,” said Wiczyk and Satchu in a statement. “But Scott is so much more than a deal person: he is our cultural heart, our loudest cheerleader, our most ferocious defender, and our ambassador to the community. Scott is an agent of change and the business cannot succeed without him. He is the conductor that brings every division together and redefines collaboration that you don’t see anywhere else. In an industry often beset by selfishness and self-interest, Scott makes it fun and safe to share.”
“For the last 16 years I have been so lucky to be surrounded by the smartest and hardest working colleagues as we have built an amazing business, working with the best and brightest artists and storytellers,” said Tenley. “In the simplest terms, like them, I find joy in making great movies and TV shows — it is what we do best at MRC. I am so grateful to Modi, Asif and all of my colleagues and partners who have given me the rarest of opportunities to play a small part in making iconic films and TV shows.”
While at MRC, Tenley has helped secure multi-billion dollars of equity and mezzanine capital for the company with partners including Goldman Sachs, WPP, ATT, JPMorgan, Abry Partners, and Eldridge. He is also the architect of MRC’s credit facility with JPMorgan and a consortium of leading entertainment banks including Comerica Bank, Union Bank, Bank of America, CIT Bank, City National Bank, East West Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, among others.
Most recently, Tenley led the team that sold “Poker Face” to Peacock. He also was critical in providing strategic guidance in the deal to sell Chloe Domont’s “Fair Play” to Netflix in the biggest sale of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, as well as the sale of Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn” to Amazon and securing a second season and spinoff of the hit Amazon Prime Video series “The Terminal List.” In 2021, he oversaw the sale of The Academy of Country Music Awards to Amazon, the first major Hollywood awards show sold to a streaming service. The 2018 joint venture Tenley completed between MRC and UTA to create Civic Center Media, one of the earliest agency affiliated production entities, has resulted in shows including “The Great” on Hulu, “The Terminal List” on Amazon, “The Outsider” on HBO, and “The Shrink Next Door” on Apple TV+. In 2012, Tenley led the effort to sell “House of Cards” to Netflix, an innovative deal that created the first original series at the streamer.
