KATIUSKA FERNANDEZ

Licensed and Originals Producer, hulu          

Heritage: Dominican

Age: 23

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Notable Accomplishments:

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• Honor Society at Syracuse University

 

By: April M. Crehan

 

Talk about a plot twist: when Hulu producer Katiuska Fernandez, 23, was a junior in college, she was a pre-med and music double major. After a fortuitous exchange with her Holy Cross mentor, VP of NFL Originals Brian Lockhart, Fernandez took a liking to the world of television.

 

The feeling was mutual. After a stint producing at the NFL, Fernandez helped launch “Game of Thrones” on Hulu, in addition to launching season two of “Chance” and season three of “The Path” in her role as producer.

 

“My career has taken such a change, even in the last couple of months,” she said. “At the NFL, I was more of a journalist.”

 

While at the NFL Network, Fernandez said she was the only Latina producer. “As a Latina, I would like to see more people in those roles. We need more of us. There’s just not enough women in important conversations.”

 

That discrepancy is one reason Fernandez would like to head a network someday; she wants to set the standard for what consumers watch.

 

“There’s too many garbage shows,” she said. “We need more shows that aren’t just numbing our brains.”

 

That means more work like “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Hulu’s recent adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian feminist novel.

 

“It’s so amazing and so politically charged,” she said. “That’s sometimes the way people learn.”

 

Whether or not Fernandez becomes a high-powered network executive, she vowed not to forget from where she came. She was born in the Dominican Republic and lived there until age 7; she then moved to Cambridge.

 

“There’re so many people that, when they become young professionals, they forget their roots,” she said. “I just love where I grew up. I would still milk a cow and walk around barefoot.”

 

 “It’s really important for people to never want to change what makes them so special and so different,” she said.

 

Massachusetts, too, will always be home for Fernandez, no matter how much time she spends in LA

 

“I grew up so blessed. Cambridge has a little bit of just about everything, and you get a dose of all that,” she said. “Boston’s such an amazing place.”