Elise Doganieri

Elise Doganieri was an Emmy-award winning producer who was best known as one of the co-creators and producers of the reality competition program "The Amazing Race" (CBS 2001). Along with her partner Bertram van Munster, she founded Profiles Television, an award-winning production company that developed and produced reality programming for the global market. Prior to working on television, Doganieri co-founded the New York-based Internet consulting and design firm Open-I-Media, and worked at top advertising agencies in both New York and Los Angeles, including Ogilvy & Mather, DDB Needham, and Chiat/Day. When reality shows started to grow in popularity, she and Van Munster created and produced one of the most popular competitive reality programs in TV history, "The Amazing Race." Following several contestants paired off into teams, "The Amazing Race" was a global scavenger hunt that took the viewers into wild exotic locations. When the "Outstanding Reality-Competition Program" Emmy category was introduced in 2003, "The Amazing Race" won the category seven years in a row between 2003-2009. The success of "The Amazing Race" allowed Doganieri and her production company to venture into cable television and other projects. In 2011, she combined her experience from her days as an Internet consultant and as a producer to develop interactive brand-entertainment programs such as "Focus Rally: America," a reality series that aired on Hulu, and "Escape Routes" a NBC reality program that had a live-streaming component for viewers to enhance their experience. Afterwards, Doganieri's next big project was "The Great Escape" (TNT 2012), another competitive reality program where contestants are pitted against each other in a race to escape a prison or other difficult to navigate challenges.