Cris Popenoe

Cris has built businesses from the ground up & also pushed existing operations into new periods of growth. Her gift is an ability to find innovative avenues of growth for businesses, and to create unforgettable experiences for consumers.

Cris sits on the Board of Delegates of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council. Her professional and personal passions include the body-mind-spirit realm, well-being, and East Asian culture.

Sometimes you can learn a lot about a person by how they start out. As a graduate student, Cris co-founded Yes! Inc., a retailer of wellness & holistic living products. She loved the way her business touched her customers’ lives. With the courage & talent to pursue new ideas, she grew the company into an international purveyor of books, videos, & music. She was the first to computerize an independent bookstore. The software she built from scratch was licensed to the largest bookstore in Europe. Her book Wellness was the first to popularize that term.

That was only the beginning.

At Universal Studios Cris founded their interactive media wing, Putnam New Media, and guided it from CD-ROMs to the Internet. Cris continues to connect content to consumers in ways that take full advantage of vanguard ideas and technology. Her goal is to create real value in people’s lives—and burnish the brands she serves with an afterglow.

Cris is a creative executive and entrepreneur with a proven track record. She has produced numerous award-winning digital media projects, including videos, mobile apps, and games. She excels at being part of the creation and growth of new products and at leveraging and extending existing brands and products and driving active consumer engagement. She’s been a digital media maven for as long as there’s been digital media.

If you asked many people what word comes to mind when they think of Cris, it may be her energy or passion, it is more likely to be her ability as a connector. Cris is renowned for her impressive breadth of business relationships in the media and entertainment world, and with marketers and technologists. She’s connected. She’s effective. She drives new ideas forward with passion, enthusiasm, and an eye towards the bottom line.