After four years, Tendo Nagenda is exiting his post at Netflix, where he has served as Senior Netflix Film Executive, according to The Hollywood Reporter website.
Reports indicate that Nagenda’s last day at the streamer will be September 1.
Nagenda joined Netflix in 2018 from Disney, where he worked on both modestly budgeted features like Queen of Katwe and major tentpoles like the live-action versions of Dumbo and Mulan. During his time at Netflix, Nagenda worked on the streamer’s splashier fare like Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods and Charlize Theron’s action vehicle The Old Guard.
His exit comes as Netflix is looking to streamline its film operations, having already gone through multiple rounds of layoffs.
In June, 300 employees were laid off, which was preceded by 150 employees being laid off in May. Prior to this, multiple full-time staff and contractors in Netflix’s editorial and marketing division were let go.
Who is Nagenda?
Nagenda was born to a Ugandan father and a Belizean mother, in 1975, in Los Angeles. He spent his childhood in California.
His father James William Byatesa Nagenda (deceased on January 23), was born in Namutamba. After finishing his secondary school education at King’s College Budo, in 1962, he went to England for further studies.
In 1968, while visiting his sister, Jane Nagenda, in New York, he had the good fortune of meeting a beautiful girl called Ruth Estelle Fairweather at the Afri-Caribbean Social Club in Harlem. He fell in love with her and married her in 1972, four years after meeting her. Their first son was born three years later and they named him Tendo Nagenda.
In 1987, when Nagenda was 12 years old, the family moved to Uganda where they lived for about one and a half years. As it turns out, that short time he lived in Uganda is one of the turning points that set him on a journey into the magical world of movie-making.
Nagenda has university degrees in both Economics and Government. He worked as a financial consultant with the global firm Deloitte & Touche before changing careers to filmmaking.
He worked at HBO Films before moving to Warner Independent Pictures as a junior creative executive. He worked at Plan B Entertainment (Brad Pitt’s company) and Good Universe, before becoming Disney’s vice president of production in 2010. Nagenda is 46 years old, and his net worth is $20m (Shs74b).