Biography

Derek Westervelt is an executive producer and former studio executive with over 30 years of leadership and achievement in the television industry.

Most recently, Westervelt was an executive producer and the head of production for the Daytime Emmy-Award winning talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where he helped manage and produce more than 3,000 episodes during its 19-year run.

Westervelt began his career at Warner Bros. as a production executive for Telepictures Productions and then transitioned to coordinating producer on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, rising through the ranks to become one of its executive producers. He received 17 Daytime Emmy nominations for his work, winning the award 11 times.

During his tenure at Warner Bros., Westervelt was also an executive producer on the NBC prime time shows Ellen's Game of Games, Family Game Fight, hosted by Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, and the star-studded mini-series, Ellen's Greatest Night of Giveaways.

Prior to his role at Warner Bros., Westervelt was a production executive at Disney's Buena Vista Productions, where he supervised multiple syndicated talk shows, game shows, and specials.

Westervelt also wrote, produced, and directed the TV movie Schemes, starring James McCaffrey, Leslie Hope, John Glover, and Polly Draper that premiered domestically on Lifetime and was successfully distributed worldwide by ACI/Pearson International.

Westervelt has an undergraduate degree from USC's Marshall School of Business and a Masters in film production from the USC School of Cinema-Television.
- IMDb mini biography by: MLP PR