Our Team
Annmarie Sairrino, CEO
Annmarie Sairrino is an experienced international producer and consultant who has specialized in adapting Japanese creative properties for global, English-language production. She has led AMMO Entertainment since establishing the company in 2020.
Ms. Sairrino began her entertainment career in 2003 with Golden Globe-winning producer Sandy Climan (THE AVIATOR) and his firm Entertainment Media Ventures. In 2012, she joined All Nippon Entertainment Works (ANEW), rising to senior vice president of development and production and serving with the company for five years. During her time with ANEW, Ms. Sairrino set up a diverse slate of projects derived from Japanese properties, including the superhero action title TIGER & BUNNY (Imagine Entertainment), the action-thriller SHIELD OF STRAW (Depth of Field), the horror-thriller GHOST TRAIN (Depth of Field, with Sonic the Hedgehog franchise screenwriters Josh Miller and Patrick Casey), the action-horror SOUL REVIVER (Bedford Falls), the dramatic horror BIRTHRIGHT (Depth of Field), the action-sci-fi GAIKING (Valhalla Entertainment), and the survival horror 6000 (Phoenix Pictures).
In 2017, Ms. Sairrino left ANEW and established Akatsuki Entertainment USA, a film division of leading Japanese mobile game developer Akatsuki. While leading the company, she developed a large slate of projects and produced the feature films ROOM 203 and ROOT LETTER.
In January 2024, Ms. Sairrino and Ammo Entertainment started strategic consulting for Qubic Pictures, an independent production company led by CEO Justin Leach which specializes in hybrid animation production between Japanese and Hollywood studios and creators (Star Wars Visions, Eden) and Cover Corp, a Japanese entertainment company known primarily for its virtual YouTuber (VTuber) agency, Hololive Production. Founded by CEO Tanigo Motoaki, Cover Corp has become a leading entity in the VTuber industry, significantly contributing to the popularity of VTubers worldwide.
In addition to AMMO Entertainment, Ms. Sairrino is currently Co-Founder and CEO of a new, upcoming intellectual property joint-creation venture company called AM3, with Jeff Pulver (Vonage, Twitter) and Nicholas Zabaly (ANEW, Akatsuki Entertainment). AM3’s goal is to create a Web3 ecosystem which brings Japanese talent and fans together to create new content for distribution and cross-vertical monetization globally.
Kat McPhee, VP, Development & Production
Kat McPhee is an experienced producer and development executive, who began her career working for a wildly diverse group of A-list talent including James Cameron, Norman Lear, Kat Von D, and Bobcat Goldthwait.
Most recently serving as Vice President of Development & Production at Ammo Entertainment, Kat McPhee started working alongside her friend and colleague, Annmarie Sairrino, in 2015, at ANEW and then continued on via Akatsuki Entertainment, where she served as VP, Development.
Together they identified countless properties for development from Japanese IP, identified new and emerging talents in the fields of writing and directing, commissioned treatments and scripts, and took two features from conception to filming and post-production.
In 2022, via Ammo Entertainment, they released horror film, Room 203, and dramatic thriller Root Letter, which was awarded the ReFrame Stamp of Distinction for Gender-Balanced Productions.
Nicholas Zabaly, VP Strategy
Nicholas Zabaly is an expert in building relationships with Japanese creators. He has more than a decade of experience cultivating trust and connections with veteran and emerging creators, as well as companies within the Japanese animation industry. Well-versed in all aspects of Japanese storytelling, industry standards and practices, and creator networks, he also possesses a wealth of knowledge of fan preferences and activities within Japan and throughout the world.
After starting his entertainment career in various capacities with Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way, Nina Jacobson's production company Color Force, and the groundbreaking Japanese animation studio Madhouse, Mr. Zabaly joined CEO Annmarie Sairrino in 2012 and has collaborated with her for the past ten years. During that time, he specialized in the development of film stories, from original concepts and adaptations through scripting, pre-production, and release. In his time with All Nippon Entertainment Works (ANEW), Akatsuki Entertainment USA, and now AMMO Entertainment, he served as the manager of intellectual property research, assisting Ms. Sairrino in the selection and development of titles, as well as in the production of the feature films Root Letter and Room 203.
Separately from his work with Ms. Sairrino and her ventures, Mr. Zabaly has also served as a producer within the animation world. In his capacity as an affiliate of the Japanese animation studio Science SARU, he served as associate producer on the studio's contributions to the award-nominated Disney+ anthology series Star Wars: Visions.
He is also producing the short animated film The Flower, a project originally initiated at Disney in the late 1990s which was recently revived as an independent, international production.
Ty Scott, Producer
Ty Scott has developed and filmed music videos, viral web shows, reality shows and short films for global clients. Her directorial work includes the award winning and nominated short film, Parker & Angel, (Amazon Prime), Counterblow (2019), Amphibious Princess (2018), and Lala Land (based on the book Girl Interrupted, a best-selling 1993 memoir by Susanna Kaysen) in 2018.
Ms. Scott is the co-producer of Room 203 and helped oversee virtually all post supervision for the film.
Ms. Scott is also currently the founder and CEO of her own multi-national independent production company, Oshun Entertainment.
Most recently, Ty was recognized and honored by The Artists Forum as July 2022's Artist Of The Month.
Jeff Pulver, Advisor
Jeff Pulver is an internet pioneer and futurist known for his work in the field of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), as well as his embrace of Web3 innovations. A serial entrepreneur and technologist, he is the founder of Jeff Pulver Entertainment (pulver.com), the co-founder of Vonage, Vivox, and Zula, and has served as an advisor and investor to over 400 startups, including several internet video companies.
In 1995, he coined the term “VON” to represent Voice and Video on the Internet. Since 1996, he has been active on the world stage at major tech and business conferences. Mr. Pulver created, hosted, and curated the global VON Conferences from 1997 to 2008, which helped accelerate the global acceptance of Internet Voice and Video technologies. He subsequently launched numerous other technology and internet conferences, most recently with a series of online events during the COVID-19 pandemic. A frequently-cited expert on developments in the internet and computer industries, he has been named a Guru of Technology by Bloomberg Businessweek.
Mr. Pulver entered the technology and communications industry via the revolution of VoIP, the underlying innovation which has made current video call applications (such as Skype and Facetime) possible. His early work in this field, beginning in the 1990s, paved the way for the emergence of Vonage, a company he co-founded and which, after subsequent developments, was acquired by Ericsson in 2021 for $6.2 billion. In the years since, he became an early advocate for the adoption of social media communities, internet video teleconferencing, and most recently, decentralized peer-to-peer internet applications (commonly known as Web3).
Via his frequent seminars and talk sessions with innovators in the Web3 space, he has helped guide the implementation of the transformational benefits that Web3 technologies can have for creators, artists, musicians, and now with AMMO Entertainment, filmmakers.
In addition to his work in business and entrepreneurship, Mr. Pulver helped change the way the world communicates. The passing of The Pulver Order by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2004, which ruled that VoIP is an internet application and not a telecommunication service, opened the door to the development of video and voice communications over internet broadband free of tax and regulation, thereby helping to set the stage for a world where consumers can communicate openly and freely.