Selene Ng is SVP of Growth at UTA Advisory, where she helps brands turn culture and audience insight into commercial advantage. She leads new business and cross-practice growth, connecting brands with UTA’s breadth across film, television, music, sports, gaming and the creator economy. Her work in cultural intelligence focuses on identifying where audiences are moving and where ideas have the potential to travel. Her career spans brand strategy, agency consulting, production and entertainment advisory across global markets, working with leading consumer and B2B brands. She judges every piece by one test: did it truly resonate with its audience, or just reach it?
How many years have you been a judge?
This is my first year!
What are your responsibilities in your current role and what do you love most about your job?
I identify and shape new opportunities for brands to work with UTA Advisory, from the first conversation through pitch and partnership. I work across our teams and the broader UTA ecosystem to bring together the right brand, the right opportunity and the right people at the right moment.
The people. I get to work alongside some of the sharpest creative and commercial minds in the business, and no two days, briefs or rooms are ever the same. I love being surrounded by people who see the world differently and constantly challenge how I think.
What inspired you to pursue your career path?
Curiosity has probably been the biggest driver of my career. I’ve never been particularly interested in following a perfectly linear path; I’ve been more interested in building a breadth of experience, moving into new industries and markets whenever there was an opportunity to learn, be challenged and add another dimension to how I see the world. That has taken me across strategy, marketing, production and entertainment, and across markets internationally, giving me both breadth and enough depth to know where I can add value. Looking back, what once might have seemed like a series of pivots now feels incredibly connected: each experience has given me a different lens, and together they’ve led me to exactly the kind of work I do today.
What was your first job in the industry? What did it teach you?
My first real entry into the industry was at Accenture, working in strategy within its media and entertainment practice. At the same time, I was training as an actor and voice actor, which meant I was learning the business from two very different vantage points: how the industry works and what it feels like to make something within it. That combination taught me something I’ve carried throughout my career: great creative work needs both instinct and rigor. You have to understand the audience and the business, but you also have to understand the craft, vulnerability and leap of faith involved in putting an idea into the world.
What do you look for to determine excellence in video?
Excellence starts with whether a piece truly understands its audience. I look for an idea that earns attention rather than simply captures it, with a clear point of view, strong craft and something that stays with you after it ends. The best work can surprise, move, entertain or challenge you, but it should make you feel something and know exactly why it exists.
What initiatives or projects are you working on now that excite you?
The work we’re doing to better understand culture and its impact on brands is very compelling. The UTA Culture Canon, comprising the Culture Index and the Culture Calendar, tracks the people, ideas, moments and movements shaping the world around us.
It brings that thinking to life by looking at how brands can participate in culture by contributing something meaningful and creating communities that people want to step into. The Culture Index helps us understand how brands are contributing to culture, while the customized Culture Calendar helps identify the cultural moments that matter, when they are happening and how a brand can engage with them in ways that feel relevant rather than opportunistic.
What excites me most is turning cultural intelligence into something practical: helping brands understand where attention is moving, what people care about and how they can create work that draws people in, invites participation and gives them a reason to stay.
Tell us about a moment of recognition that had an effect on you – whether personal or official? What does recognition mean to you and why is it important in our industry?
This invitation, actually. My career hasn’t followed a conventional path through this industry, so being invited to join the Telly Awards Judging Council made me stop for a moment and appreciate where all those different chapters have led. To be trusted to evaluate other people’s work feels like a particularly meaningful form of recognition because it values perspective, not just a title or a traditional career trajectory.
That’s also why recognition matters in our industry. At its best, it surfaces work and voices that deserve a bigger audience, validates creative risk and helps set the bar for what comes next. I’m very happy to now be on the other side of that equation.
Do you have any specific practices you lean on to spark creativity?
I am a big believer in creative cross-pollination. I deliberately look outside whatever problem I’m trying to solve, whether that means going to an exhibition, watching something I wouldn’t normally choose, reading outside my industry, traveling or talking to someone whose world is completely different from mine. Some of my best ideas come from connecting two things that weren’t meant to sit together. Curiosity is probably my most consistent creative practice: keep putting unexpected things into your brain and eventually it starts making interesting connections of its own. I love to see this in the creative process and the ultimate content being produced.
In your experience, what is a significant change you are seeing happen in the video, television, and/or film industry, and what insight can you share about how to navigate it?
AI is clearly one of the biggest shifts reshaping our industry, but what interests me most is what happens when the barriers to creating become dramatically lower. We’re going to be able to make more, faster and in ways that weren’t previously possible. That’s incredibly exciting, but an abundance of content also makes taste, judgment and originality more valuable. Discernment becomes harder, which makes the role of juries in recognizing truly original, exceptional work more important than ever.
My view is to approach AI with curiosity rather than fear, while being thoughtful about authorship, consent and the value of human craft. The technology can expand what’s possible, but it still takes people to decide what’s worth making and why anyone should care. In a world where almost anyone can create anything, the real differentiator may become something very human: having something worth saying.
What excites you about judging for the Telly Awards?
I am excited to see work I might never otherwise encounter, from different creators, disciplines and parts of the world, and I am looking forward to being surprised by what rises to the top. There is something energizing about seeing how other people are pushing the boundaries of storytelling and craft. And I love the idea of playing a small part in giving exceptional work—and the people behind it—the recognition it deserves.
