Women Behind the Scenes Spotlight: Heather Kadin

Today’s Women Behind the Scenes spotlight is shone on TV network executive and TV series executive producer Heather Kadin.

In August of 1994, at the age of 22, Heather drove with her parents from Arizona to Los Angeles in order to pursue her dream of making it in the film business. At that point she had no contacts in the industry so she perused The Hollywood Reporter’s production listings, sending her resume to the office of every movie that was shooting in Los Angeles.

This unusual strategy actually worked as she landed her first job as an unpaid assistant to producer Lynda Obst, the executive producer on the film Sleepless in Seattle. She later moved on to work as an assistant to Kevin Misher at TriStar and at Universal Pictures and for director Tom Shadyac.

In 1998, Shadyac decided to promote Heather to his development executive. One of the scripts that she brought in was Bruce Almighty, which was eventually released in 2003. As for Heather, she made a move in the summer of 2000 when she had a meeting with David Lonner, then an agent at Endeavor who gave her what she calls “the best career advice”. He told her to be open to the unexpected opportunity even if it came from left field.

Oddly enough, an unexpected opportunity came when she interviewed with Susan Lyne, who was – at the time – the head of ABC’s long form department. A year later, she was offered a move to ABC working in their drama department. While there she worked on a show that she loved – Alias – and then 2 ½ years later, she helped Lost, pairing J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof as well as overseeing the development of the pilot. It was also during that TV season that she was involved in the development of Grey’s Anatomy and “championed a low-profile spec script for Desperate Housewives.

Eventually she ended up working at Warner Bros. Television as Vice President of Drama Development where she worked on projects like The Closer, Supernatural and the short-lived dramas Invasion, Traveler and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Most recently she has worked with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci on the FOX drama Fringe and is currently an executive producer on the hit FOX series Sleepy Hollow. She is also an executive producer on the upcoming drama Scorpion (that will debut on CBS this fall) and Matador (the new El Rey Network drama that debuted last night).

Heather can be followed on Twitter @hkadin.