Maria Finitzo is a two-time Peabody award winning social-issue documentary filmmaker. She has been producing and directing documentary films for network television, public broadcasting, cable TV and the Internet for more than 25 years. Her body of work has been honored by every major broadcast award granted to documentary films. Ms. Finitzo’s films demonstrate a depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise, tackling a wide variety of subjects including the controversial science of stem cell research, the command and control of nuclear weapons on an international level, and the complex psychology of adolescent girls.

A former commissioning editor for documentary, Cynthia helped transform the way global documentaries are seen on American television. She created DOCday on Sundance Channel in 2002, and shepherded over 150 international and U.S. co-productions for public media at ITVS. More recently, she helped launch Al Jazeera America Presents with series (including Kartemquin's Hard Earned which won a 2016 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award) and documentaries (Albert Maysles' final work, In Transit, Leon Gast's Sporting Dreams, Barbara Kopple's Shelter, Jennifer Maytorena Taylor's Daisy and Max, Michelle Shephard and Patrick Reed's Guantanamo's Child, Marc Levin's Freeway: Crack in the System, the last two recently nominated for Emmys.)

Diane worked in LA for over 17 years before moving back to her hometown of Chicago. While in LA, Diane had a successful career at NBC and at Paramount Pictures where she was last the Vice President of Marketing.