Emeritus Board Member
Adrianne Furniss spent her professional career in the media business, specializing in distribution and marketing strategies, management, strategic planning and acquisitions. For 13 years, she worked at Chicago-based Home Vision Entertainment (HVe), where she rose from Executive Vice President to President/CEO and majority owner before selling the business in 2005. In addition to licensing, publishing, distributing and marketing classic and independent films, Home Vision Entertainment was the distributor of the renowned DVD special edition publisher The Criterion Collection. Before that, Adrianne spent fourteen years in New York City, the last eight travelling the world for Children’s Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) where she served as VP of International Television and Home Video Sales, Marketing and Program Development.
Currently, Adrianne serves on three boards. In addition to Kartemquin, she is Trustee, Vice Chair and finance committee member at the Benton Foundation, Washington DC, whose mission is to ensure that media and telecommunications serve the public interest and enhance our democracy. She is also on the board of the National Center for Family Philanthropy, based in Washington, DC, whose mission is to promote philanthropic values, vision, and excellence across generations of donors and donor families. In the past she has served on other Chicago-based boards, including The Chicago International Film Festival, Project Exploration, Youth Connection and The New Trier Fine Arts Association.
Adrianne received her BA at Yale University in Art History and an MA in Radio, TV and Film from Northwestern University.
She lives in Wilmette, Illinois, with her husband, Bob Furniss, Deputy Inspector General for the State of Illinois Department of Human Services. They have two daughters: Lily attends New Trier High School; Carrie is a student at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami, FL.