“And I’m doing what I feel is my job, which is trying to figure out the long-term path for this organization.”Berk’s detractors inside Participant, past and present, share their disdain for memos that he emails at all hours of the night and for what they say is his penchant for second-guessing others and even his own decisions. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. “I have only so many resources and so much time.”His passion for repairing the planet requires Participant also rise to a whole new level. If something happened to me, that would be a problem.During a rare and wide-ranging interview at his Sunset Boulevard office, the soft-spoken Skoll divulged plans to push ahead with a long-stalled initiative to appoint a board of directors for the Beverly Hills-based maker of films, television and new-media content. As the leading media company dedicated to entertainment that inspires and compels social change, Participant Media's projects combine the power of a great story with opportunities for global audiences to get involved. But rather than make world-changing films, the modest production company generated a couple of clunkers, low-lighted by the Robin Williams-starrer “House of D.”Skoll rebooted in late 2003, taking offices on the Sony lot and working closely with new advisers — Hollywood insiders Peter Schlessel and Rick Hess, the CAA agent. And he acknowledged that he needed to decide whether his nascent television enterprise — the cash-draining Pivot cable channel — could be kept alive as a stand-alone.When Skoll launched Participant in 2004, doubters had questioned whether his super-sized dream — marrying bottom-line profitability to high social impact — could succeed in the real world.With a boyish guilelessness, Skoll already had taken pleasure in proving nonbelievers wrong — and made a considerable fortune doing so. I am the sole greenlight at the company. He is an avid Montreal Canadiens fan. Collectively, they have been nominated for 37 Academy Awards and won eight, including the docu prize this year for Laura Poitras’ “Citizenfour,” about whistleblower Edward Snowden.Participant has also invested in a fair number of box office duds over the years, including “The Beaver,” “Furry Vengeance” and “The Fifth Estate.”And, there have been the usual regrettable passes. Participant helped finance some films that were both commercially viable and socially relevant — including Oscar-winning climate-change documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and a trio of best-picture nominees, “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “The Help” and “Lincoln” — and backed them with education and social-action campaigns on its crusading website.Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn describes Skoll as “a fully formed human being,” unmoved by celebrity, the usual Hollywood trappings or the prospect of greater riches. The Skoll Foundation is part of the Jeff Skoll Group. The film was nominated for six Oscars, including best picture, and is one of 67 films — about half of them documentaries — that Participant has helped finance. But he pauses when confronted with accounts of the company’s confidential gathering, saying the remarks need to be put into context.“We have done super on our film business and our brand in the Hollywood entertainment community,” Skoll says. Back in 2009, Skoll directed $100 million to create the Skoll Global Threats Fund. Skoll felt his huge social action objectives mandated a position on television. Skoll, meanwhile, acknowledges that some employees find Berk’s “tight ship” style “challenging.” But he called that reaction typical, “especially when you are growing, and have a lot of moving parts.”Skoll calls Berk “a great leader” and “my partner,” adding the two share an overarching goal — “to do what is best for the long term good of the company.”The little boy who read books by the cartload and worried about what would become of the world is still not far from the surface in Skoll. In his keynote address at the Toronto Film Festival in 2013, Skoll talked about going “10X” — expanding from 200-plus employees to more than 2,000 in a decade, and making 10 times as many movies, TV shows and stories for TakePart.com.That goal spurred Skoll a year ago to hire two strategic planning executives who had previously worked for Disney. Initially founded with a focus on film, over the past decade Participant has expanded to become a multi-platform content company producing and distributing film, television and digital entertainment. Over and over, his executives in the room recall him saying: “This thing is broken. “It really wasn’t entirely on the page at that point. Years later, Skoll still laughs at the memory.The debilitating fever that beset him last September was just one in a series of life-changing events. “In retrospect, I wish we had,” Skoll says. After meeting Skoll a decade ago, Horn says: “I found myself thinking, ‘If anybody on this planet is going to have a lot of money, let it be a person like him.’ I liked his values. Pivot fortified its schedule with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and other millennial-friendly fare.But several people who worked for the channel say privately in interviews that Participant CEO Berk shifted strategy frequently and fiddled with individual programs. But George is a talent. We’ll see you on PBS.” But, the actor adds: “He actually showed up and did exactly what he said he wanted to do.
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