Sean Atkins

Bio:

Sean Atkins has a proven ability to build high-value businesses across diverse industries. Over the past 20 years, he has been a pioneer at the intersection of consumer, media, and tech, driving transformative initiatives at several of the world’s leading brands, including MTV, Discovery, HBO, Bertelsmann, Jellysmack, Yahoo!, and Disney. He now serves as CEO of Dhar Mann Studios, the audience-first global entertainment company dedicated to uplifting the world by creating stories and experiences that help people feel seen and connected.

Headquartered in a 125,000 SF, three-stage production studio in Burbank, CA, Dhar Mann Studios is pioneering a new model of entertainment built around direct relationships with global audiences. The company creates positive, uplifting original programming, from long-form narrative series to short-form content, with stories rooted in universal human experiences that reach nearly 300 million views every week across platforms. Its positive storytelling resonates across cultures and generations, with three out of four viewers reporting the content changes how they feel, think and treat others after watching. Sean also launched and leads DMS’ creator-services business, 5th Quarter Agency, which supports its creator clients to generate more than six figures per month of incremental revenue. 

Atkins has successfully built several $100M+ businesses across consumer internet, the creator economy, ad tech, ed tech, OTT/streaming, e-commerce, podcasting, and licensing. As President of Jellysmack, Sean led revenue, go-to-market strategies, customer engagement, brand sales, content teams, and new business initiatives to build the #1 globally recognized creator economy brand. While President of MTV, Sean reversed five years of audience decline, restructured the business to free up $100 million in operating costs, and created a new digital line of business that achieved a $40 million revenue run rate in less than 18 months. As Chief Digital Officer for Discovery Communications, he transformed the digital business by investing in the first Creator Economy companies and developing Discovery+.