Monique Damore – Fremantle

Fremantle has established itself as a global leader in unscripted television and premium documentaries, producing flagship series such as American Idol and Deadliest Catch under Original Productions, along with acclaimed documentaries including Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story and Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror under Original Productions for Netflix. Pairing creative ambition with operational excellence, the company has built a diverse global portfolio spanning long-running competition formats, premium streaming content, and major international productions. From shoots in Montreal to productions in Toronto and Atlanta, its continued growth across platforms and territories is fueled by an ability to anticipate change and execute at scale. Behind the creative output is a disciplined legal infrastructure — one that grows more sophisticated with every new market entered, every new partner secured, and every new challenge faced.

Monique Damore | Fremantle | Vice President, Business & Legal Affairs

Central to that infrastructure is Monique Damore, Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs, whose steady hand guides production legal matters across Fremantle, Original Productions, and Eureka Productions. She oversees a lean team of four covering more than 30 active projects at any given time — a workload that demands efficiency, strong communication, and an unwavering commitment to process.

“We are the leading production company. We have a diverse portfolio. Anyone can find something that they love that we’ve made,” Damore says. Her pride in the company is evident — and hard-earned. She came up through the ranks, learning the industry from the inside out, and has grown into one of its most trusted legal voices.

Building a legal team that lasts

Damore’s team — three directors and one manager — reflects her philosophy of hiring for potential and investing in people over time. She recently promoted two direct reports to director-level positions after over three years of working alongside them, a milestone that speaks to her commitment to developing talent from within rather than seeking ready-made expertise from the outside. Each team member brings a distinct background: one came from radio and affiliate markets, another from scripted work at AMC, and a third was hired specifically for having seen a production through from start to finish. That diversity of experience, Damore believes, creates both resilience and depth.

The team operates on a hybrid schedule, working closely together despite the demands of productions that span multiple cities and time zones. Damore attributes their effectiveness to trust, strong communication, and a shared orientation toward solving problems rather than avoiding them. She maintains an open-door policy and takes pride in being approachable. When she recently brought a team member to Toronto for a compliance-heavy production, she watched that person move from nervous uncertainty on the first day to confident command by the last — a kind of transformation she actively seeks to create.

“As long as you’re smart and hard-working, you can teach anyone how to be successful in this role,” she says. It is a belief that shapes every hire she makes and every decision about how to deploy her team

Navigating complexity with process

Damore describes herself, without hesitation, as a process person. Her approach to any challenge follows a consistent pattern: identify the stakeholders, map the risk, find the best solution, and put a durable procedure in place so the problem does not recur. It is a framework she has applied to productions of every scale and format, and it has made her team one of the most efficient in the company.

That mindset proved invaluable during one of the most disruptive periods in recent television history. When COVID-19 upended live production, Damore helped pioneer a remote competition format for American Idol that preserved fairness and regulatory compliance — no small feat for a show built on in-person performance. Her team mostly handles compliance entirely in-house, an approach that distinguishes Fremantle from many of its peers and creates a closer, more informed working relationship with production.

“It is a huge advantage for doing in-house. We know the stakeholders, we know each other well. Communication is good. We have a personal stake and want to do what is best for the company,” she explains.

Rather than reflexively deferring to outside counsel, Damore’s team engages directly with networks, distributors, and production partners — building institutional knowledge that pays dividends across every project they touch.

As Fremantle has expanded internationally, its knowledge base has grown more complex. Productions in Montreal require documentation in both English and French. International shoots demand familiarity with local labor laws and compliance frameworks. Even when a show is produced abroad for a major streamer, U.S. rules and compliance standards often still apply. Damore approaches each new jurisdiction as a learning opportunity, extending her expertise alongside her team’s

Beyond her production legal responsibilities, Damore co-leads the Community Impact Collective, an internal initiative focused on culture, mentorship, and employee engagement. The collective puts on events, partners with third-party organizations such as Fresh Films, and channels volunteer time toward making Fremantle a more rewarding place to work. It is a natural extension of the values she brings to her immediate team and reflects a belief that a strong working environment is not separate from professional success — it is a precondition for it.

“We need to have a good working environment and give that to the team as well,” she says of the initiative.

The collective gives Damore a forum to think about culture at scale, applying the same intentionality she brings to legal workflows to the broader question of how organizations thrive.

The road that led here

Damore grew up in Orange County, with Los Angeles always in the background. She attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, for her undergraduate degree and arrived at Southwestern School of Law with a science background and an early interest in patent work. An elective in copyright law changed her trajectory entirely. A summer academic program in London, where she took a course in entertainment intellectual property, gave that new passion a clear direction.

After nearly three years at the Santa Barbara Superior Court and production legal experience at NBCUniversal, she joined Fremantle in September 2016 and was named to her current vice president position in September 2020. The climb was not inevitable — it was deliberate.

“I came in as a law clerk. I didn’t know how production works — I was on the network side. I just started by sitting and learning,” she recalls. That early willingness to absorb everything around her, to ask questions, to go to set and to trust the process, set the foundation for the leader she has become.

Today, Damore looks ahead to a busy year: long-running shows continuing their runs, new productions entering the pipeline, and international work expanding into new markets. She remains energized by the variety of it all — the legal puzzles, the compliance questions, and the team she has built around her. In an industry that rewards both creativity and rigor, she has found a way to be indispensable to both.