John Ledford

John Ledford is an entrepreneur and leader in the North American anime industry. In 1992, he founded A.D. Vision (ADV), paving the way for other businesses and the exponential growth anime has had within North America. With ADV's success, Ledford turned his sights to making the imaginative world of anime even more accessible with Anime Network's founding, North America’s first cable TV network dedicated to anime. He later partnered with Kadokawa Publishing and began Newtype USA with translated Japanese content and exclusive U.S. material related to all things anime, manga, and model reviews. This endeavor expanded into ADV Manga, which obtained licensing and publishing rights for hundreds of Japanese manga and Korean manhwa.

In 2008, Ledford founded a new anime-focused company called Sentai Filmworks (Sentai). Since its founding, Sentai provides thousands of hours of content across traditional and digital platforms. Sentai’s dedication to bringing captivating stories, including acclaimed titles such as Grave of the Fireflies, Ninja Scroll, and High School of the Dead to audiences, is ongoing.

Ledford’s most recent success is with the 2017 founding of the streaming service HIDIVE. Since launching, HIDIVE is now available via a web browser, mobile devices, gaming platforms, and more. HIDIVE offers new simulcasts every season, an ever-growing collection of dubs, and exclusive titles. The service features DUBCAST SM editions, early access local-language dubs of simulcasts directly produced by HIDIVE, as early as two weeks after the original Japanese broadcast.

For nearly thirty years now, Ledford continues his goal to further the expansion of anime and the Japanese culture as a whole.