This week’s layoffs at Netflix, which saw it cut 1,000 jobs or about 6% of its workforce, also hit the streamer’s unscripted television division. Deadline understands that several executives on its unscripted casting and development teams have been affected by the cuts. They include Amy Cohen, Rich Leist and Annie Roberts. Cohen, who has worked at the company for nearly 10 years, was a director of nonfiction series. He joined the streamer in 2017, after spending more than a decade at Fox, where he worked with Mike Darnell, who recently agreed to an overall deal with Netflix. Leist, who has been with the company for more than five years, is a former unscripted casting director who joined in 2021 from All3Media America. Along with Brittany Grooms and César Rocha, he was part of the team that launched Netflix’s first in-house casting department in 2021. Roberts was also an unscripted casting executive. He joined the streamer in 2021 from NBCUniversal, after having worked at Peacock, USA Network, E!, Oxygen and Bravo. The cuts have also seen several executives on its awards, product, technology and human resources team, as well as television and scripted film, affected. On Wednesday, Deadline revealed that Lisa Lang McMullen, James Oh, Andrew McQuinn and Carolina Garcia, who were part of Netflix’s scripted division, were fired along with several managers, including Dan Evans, Jason Pan and Aaron Davidson. On the film side, Doug Belgrad, who was vice president of film and film chief Dan Lin’s first hire after replacing Scott Stuber, Sheroum Kim, who was a director of independent films, and feature film manager Sebastian Hernandez were also affected by the layoffs.
