Avi Arad

Avi Arad (; ; born August 1, 1948) is an Israeli-American film producer who became the CEO of the company Toy Biz in the 1990s and soon afterward became the chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment, and the chairman, CEO, and founder of Marvel Studios. Since then, he has produced a wide array of live-action, animated, and television comic book adaptations including Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the 2018 Academy Award winner for Best Animated Feature. Early life Arad was born in 1948 in Ramat Gan, Israel, to a Jewish family. The son of Holocaust survivors from Poland, he grew up reading Superman and Spider-Man comics translated into Hebrew. In 1965, he was conscripted as a soldier into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He fought and was wounded in the 1967 Six-Day War, and spent 15 days recuperating. Arad finished his military service in 1968. In 1970, Arad moved to the United States and enrolled at Hofstra University to study industrial management. He worked as a truck driver and as a Hebrew teacher to put himself through college, and graduated with a BBA in 1972. Career