Maria Kennedy is co-founder, executive producer and owner of Little Engine Moving Pictures, where she oversees all business aspects of Little Engine’s creative properties, including the company’s production and distribution divisions. Since 2014, she has secured over 5 million dollars in financing for the development and production of Little Engine’s series and digital content. Through Maria’s direction, Little Engine’s new distribution division is rapidly expanding to encompass a library of premium in-house and third-party titles. Maria has worked with Canadian broadcast partners TVO, Société Radio-Canada, CBC, TFO, Knowledge, SuperChannel, and OMNI, and funding partners Canada Media Fund, Shaw Rocket Fund, COGECO, Bell Fund, Rogers Telefund and Ontario Creates. She has produced TV series, feature films, commercials, branded content, and companion Interactive web-sites and games. Her debut series Now You Know was licensed to over 100 territories worldwide. She is a recipient of the BANFF Spark Program, National Screen Institute Feature Film program, Canadian Creative Accelerator and the CFC Canadian Film Centre Fifth Wave Initiative. Maria is a Youth Media Alliance board member who fosters mentorship for emerging gender and culturally diverse creators and producers. A strong advocate of gender, BIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ equity in the workplace, Maria encourages creators, storytellers, producers, animators, newcomers and veterans in the media industry to reach out and say hello.