Tendo Nagenda is stepping down from his position at Netflix, where he served as vice president, original film 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 movie operations. Under cinema head Scott Stuber, Kira Goldberg and Ori Marmur will now lead the studio’s film team, which handles the streamers’ big-budget operations. The duo was upgraded in 2021 to head a team meant to focus on the development and production of big-budget films.
Elsewhere on Netflix’s film team, Niija Kuykendall, who joined the company in 2021, leads the feature team focused on medium-sized films, while Netflix veteran Lisa Nishimura continues to lead the indie film division.
Nagenda joined Netflix in 2018 from Disney, where he worked on both low-budget features like Queen of Katwe and big-budget projects like the live-action versions of Dumbo and Mulan. During his time at Netflix, Nagenda worked on the streamer’s more romantic fare, including Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods and Charlize Theron’s action vehicle The Old Guard, which will have a sequel on the streamer.
“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. It was integral to our evolution from acquiring and licensing films to making films ourselves. We wish him all the best for the future,” Stuber said in a statement.
Offered Nagenda: “I’m honored to have been a small part of a filmmaking team that led Oscar nominations three years in a row, became the world’s largest film producer by every metric, led the industry through a pandemic, and be the flag bearer for representation and inclusion both in front of and behind the camera. I hope Netflix continues to have the tenacity and audacity to make the big changes and tell the big and beloved stories that need to be told. I plan to.”
The change in Netflix’s film team comes as the streamer continues to restructure, having already gone through several rounds of layoffs. In June 300 workers were laid off, while in May 150 workers were laid off. Before that, many full-time employees and contractors in Netflix’s editorial and marketing department were let go.
In a June 23 memo to staff, Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings noted that he wanted the company to go through “a more gradual realignment of the business” after slower-than-expected revenue growth.
