A journalism grad’s journey to the Forbes 30 Under 30

“Concordia has always been a special place for my family,” says Danielle Gasher, BA 18 (journalism). Her father, the late Mike Gasher, PhD 99, was a professor in the Department of Journalism as well as its chair for four years.

“The university was like home to my dad, and many of his colleagues became kind of like family,” she adds. A former sports journalist himself, Mike steeped his daughter in media including newspapers, television, radio and documentary film. She grew up wanting to be a journalist, too, before a different dream loomed larger.

At 29 years old, the now vice-president of Acquisitions and International Sales for Hollywood film distributor Gravitas Ventures was recently named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 North America 2025 list in the Hollywood and Entertainment category.

Gasher says that recognition is truly meaningful to her as part of a long process of overcoming self-doubt. “It’s a little corny, but I’m big on vision boards and the Forbes list was always something on my vision board as a scrappy little Montrealer. Sometimes we’re the biggest blocks in our way, but we can’t put any limits on ourselves. You can be whatever the hell you want to be.”

‘A collaborative, tight-knit program’

Gasher’s goal shifted in her third year at Concordia. While she had always loved movies, she didn’t think she had the skills to become a filmmaker. In a radio newsroom class, though, she experienced the challenge of creating a radio program from the ground up with her classmates.

It was part of the entrepreneurial core of Concordia’s Journalism program that she loved, which teaches not just by analyzing the work of people in the field, but by putting students through the paces of how to be a journalist — from cold-calling and setting up interviews to working the newsroom and producing a documentary.

“It was less top-down and more of a collaborative, tight-knit program that allowed you to delve into your strengths and be curious and question things,” says Gasher. “I came to realize that process is kind of how production works, so I thought, maybe I could translate my journalism skills to the film industry and be a producer.” She was right. “Every day I use the skills and confidence I acquired in my degree. Sometimes the expectations felt terrifying, but real life is terrifying.”

From a friend, Gasher learned about the now-defunct Creative Mind Group, which matched college interns to sales and production companies who needed assistants at film festivals. She landed an internship with Double Dutch International, joining the small Canadian company at Cannes in 2017.

A path to success