Paula Wagner has worked in the top ranks of the entertainment industry as a film and Broadway producer, talent agent and studio executive. She has made films all over the world and has been actively involved in promoting international co-productions.

Ms. Wagner is a co-founder of Cruise/Wagner Productions, where she produced notable films such as Mission Impossible I, II, III, The Last Samurai, Vanilla Sky, The Others, Shattered Glass, and executive produced Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. Earlier in her career she was a prominent talent agent at Creative Artists Agency. In all, films produced by C/W earned more than $3 billion in worldwide box office receipts.

Through her production company, Chestnut Ridge Productions she produced the critically acclaimed film Marshall, starring Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad and Kate Hudson. Currently, she is in active development with independent feature films, plays for Broadway theatre and various series for streaming and TV. Broadway producing credits include the new hit, Pretty Woman: The Musical; The Heiress starring Jessica Chastain, Grace starring Paul Rudd and Michael Shannon, and the Tony-nominated play Mothers and Sons.

Wagner was honored by Premiere magazine with the Women in Hollywood Icon Award in 2001 and the following year she was featured in Bravo's Women on Top, a documentary which profiled exceptional women in entertainment. In October of 2006, she received the Sherry Lansing Award from the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Organization. She was also honored by the Costume Designers Guild with its Swarovski President's Award in 2008, and at the Deauville American Film Festival in 2012. In addition she was one of the recipients of the Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards in 2016, and the Cameraimage Producer with Unique Visual Sensitivity award in 2017. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, PGA, The Broadway League and ambassador of ReFrame for Women In Film, a formal action plan to further gender parity in the media industry.