Adam Zehner

After graduating from UT with a BFA in Acting, BA in Playwriting, and a BA in Asian Studies, I moved to Japan and spent 6 years studying the culture and cultivating my language skills. After realizing a life long dream with an amazing trip around the world for one year, I returned to the U.S. to join Funimation Entertainment as the head of their content acquisitions department in the then still niche medium of anime (Japanese animation). Over the last 19 years, I have navigated going from a small, family run indie company to enjoying my role at the significantly larger Crunchyroll entity formed when Sony Pictures Entertainment purchased my company (I was a minority owner) and allowed us to acquire our largest anime competitor in Crunchyroll.

During my time in the entertainment business, I have worked across many lines of business beyond pure acquisitions responsibilities as I led our Consumer Products division for 9 years, helped negotiate our initial deals with streaming platforms such as Netflix and Hulu, and collaborated across all lines of business. I am currently expanding the scope of my role to larger strategic partnerships and our imminent move into the metaverse to engage with our tech savvy fans on the front line. That said, acquisitions has been the backbone of my career, and in that function I have acquired over 2,000 titles during my time at Funimation/Crunchyroll including various Dragon Ball Series, One Piece, Attack on Titan, My Hero Academia, Your Name, and the live action feature Shin Godzilla. I am passionate about mentoring young professionals and always enjoy the opportunity to pass along my learnings to interested attendees.