Prof. Jennifer Mival
Professors
Vita
A content executive with extensive international leadership experience in non-fiction entertainment at streaming platforms, TV broadcasters and production companies, specialising in programme strategy, format development and innovation management, as well as possessing extensive expertise in the international format IP licensing business.
In early 2021, she took up the professorship at the ifs and was responsible for the detailed design and market launch of the first Master’s programme on entertainment in the German-speaking world, which she has led very successfully ever since.
Alongside her professorship, Jennifer Mival works as a Senior Advisor for, amongst others, ARD/ARD-Mediathek, SRF/Play SRF and Seapoint Productions. Until the end of 2020, Jennifer Mival was responsible at Netflix for building the new documentary series and unscripted portfolio for the German-speaking market and Scandinavia, featuring top-five ranked, award-winning serial formats. Previously, she worked as an Executive Producer and Head of Formats at Seapoint Productions, ITV Studios and ProSiebenSat.1, as well as Head of Programming at the youth channel Joiz. Jennifer Mival began her professional career in London, including as a Development Producer at Fremantle.
Her programmes have been nominated for the German Television Academy Award (‘Frank Elstner: Wetten, das war’s’, Netflix), the Norwegian Gullruten Award (‘Mr Good: Cop or Crook’, Netflix), the German Television Prize (‘Jung & Naiv’, Joiz) and the international Rose D’Or (‘Promi ärgere Dich nicht’, Sat.1). She won the Grimme Prize Special for “Queer Eye Germany” (Netflix), the Kristallen Award for “Angry Carpenter” (Kanal 5, Sweden) and the Rose D’Or for “Your Face or Mine” (Channel 4, UK).
Since 2026, Jennifer Mival has been a committee member of the New Media funding programme at Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, focusing on serial formats, among other things.
From 2011 to 2019, she held a teaching position at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, teaching format development and transmedia storytelling for the Master’s programme in Media Studies and the Bachelor’s programme in Digital Media Culture.
Jennifer Mival studied for her Master’s degree in Communication Studies, Political Science and Modern History at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, and for her diploma in International Relations at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, Italy.