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Lexie Chu朱慧精
Founder / CEO Lexie Chu is one of the four founders and CEO of Asians in Animation. Establishing the IRS-approved 501(c)3 organisation in 2021, she charts the path forward for the future of the community, primarily focusing on business development and future production opportunities. Since 2020, Lexie has spearheaded, scaled, and shaped Asians in Animation's leadership and volunteer team, strategy, operations, brand, and educational efforts, launching and building all operational structures. Under her leadership, AIA is proud to be the largest active online community in the animation industry, with 5000+ members in all major animation hubs around the world. She oversees the development and cultivation of the memberbase's career growth across different career levels and develops new initiatives with her team to forge key partnerships with the major animation studios, further studio career pathways for diverse talent, and build high-impact industry mentorship and education with programs such as the Asians in Animation Career Summit and Immersive Lab Production Program. She is proud to shape a more vibrant and inclusive future of animation and foster the next generation of storytellers.
By day, Lexie works at Skydance Animation as part of the Creative Development team, responsible for packaging talent, bridging the gap between story and business, and partnering hand-in-hand with filmmakers to elevate the full slate of original animated feature films and shorts on Apple TV+ and more coming soon to Netflix in 2025. During her first year at Skydance, she established the current production workflow of the development process and now manages all the humans in development - from executives, filmmakers, writers, artists, to interns. Her current work primarily focuses on setting up special projects and up-and-coming leadership for success from idea to greenlight; and crafting healthy creative ecosystems to bring out the best in talent. Starting in live-action film and television production, she worked on numerous indie and studio features - her last being Warner Bros.'s Crazy Rich Asians, an American-Singaporean production just like Lexie! Her multi-disciplinary animation career began in international film distribution, brand strategy, and marketing, working on beloved animated series such as ZAG Entertainment and Method Studios's Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir and countless globally-renowned anime titles at FUNimation (Crunchyroll), such as Fairy Tail and Attack on Titan. Lexie also worked at Cartoon Network Studios on The Powerpuff Girls (2016) and Tig ‘n’ Seek and Minions: Rise of Gru, Sing 2, Migration, and more theatrical features and shorts at Illumination (NBCUniversal). Prior to Skydance, Lexie worked on thirteen features and one series in Animated Film Development at Netflix. In her first year at Netflix, Lexie founded and served as the first community leader of the Asians@ Netflix Animation employee resource group where she partnered with studio leadership and executives to amplify, structure, and establish the foundations for all studio employee resource groups and shaping the studio's present and future of inclusive culture, creating a safer space and future for all identities at Netflix. With an emphasis in producing, Lexie received her BFA in Film and Television Production from USC's School of Cinematic Arts. In her free time, she is an active mentor in the animation community, mentoring with animation non-profits such as Women in Animation, jurying independent filmmaking grants, and consulting with other entertainment advocacy organisations and initiatives to build out their strategy and operations. She has also given seminars, lectures, and workshops and spoken at festivals (such as the Ottawa International Animation Festival), conferences, universities, and high-schools across North America, Europe, and Asia to advocate for and provide entertainment industry accessibility and sustainability. Having grown up between Texas, England, Italy, Switzerland, and Singapore, her work focuses on building avenues for international storytelling and supporting stories that transcend borders, while proactively championing and opening new doors for diverse animation talent across the globe. |
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