Presidential Lecture Series - Dimitri Villard, Producer, Writer, Entrepreneur

Dimitri Villard graduated from Harvard University, where he was an Editor of the Harvard Lampoon, and has a Master of Science degree from China International Medical University.

Early in his career, he founded Jet Set Records, one of the memorable rhythm & blues labels of the era. Later, he co-founded the first pay cable television company to operate in California, Channel One, which was later sold to Times Mirror. Since 1980, he has produced a number of motion pictures, including In Love And War, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Sandra Bullock and Chris O’Donnell (New Line); Timewalker, starring Ben Murphy (New World); Once Bitten, starring Jim Carrey and Lauren Hutton (Goldwyn); Death of an Angel, starring Nick Mancuso and Bonnie Bedelia(Twentieth Century-Fox); Frankenstein General Hospital, starring Mark Blankfield (New Star); Hide And Go Shriek (New Star); Purgatory, starring Tanya Roberts (New Star); Easy Wheels, starring Paul Le Mat and Eileen Davidson (Fries); Flight of the Navigator, directed by Randal Kleiser (Disney) and Say Nothing, starring Nastassja Kinski and William Baldwin (HBO). He was credited as a writer on In Love And War and Once Bitten (Jim Carrey’s first movie role).

Mr. Villard also co-founded Image Organization, an international film sales agency. From 1993 to 1996 he was a Managing Director of the investment bank Laidlaw & Co., and from 1997 to 2000 a Director of Société Générale Investment Banking, where he was involved in numerous financing and merger transactions in the entertainment and media industry.

In 2000, he co-founded and became Chairman of Pivotal BioSciences, Inc., a biotechnology spin-out of the USC Keck School of Medicine that is developing a novel immunotherapy treatment for cancer.

From 2004 to 2008, he was Chairman of DAX Solutions, a leading supplier of digital production services, and from 2009 to 2013, he was CEO of ArtistDIRECT, a music Internet website, which he restructured into Peer Media Technologies, an anti-piracy and entertainment business intelligence company.

As a member of the Executive Committee of the Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel venture capital investment group in the United States, he is active in identifying and leading investments in early stage high technology ventures. He is also a mentor at Founder Institute, a boot camp for technology startups, and a frequent judge at venture events at USC Viturbi School of Engineering and UCLA Anderson School of Business, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of Staffing 360 Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: STAF).

Mr. Villard is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and is presently developing a number of projects for film and television, including Soul Catcher based on the novel by Frank Herbert (Dune), an American remake of the 2016 Brazilian Oscar entry The Second Mother and a television mini-series on the Marquis de Lafayette.