About Jeffrey Berman

I’ve spent most of my professional life telling stories, listening to people, and finding ways to make complicated ideas understandable. As a writer, filmmaker, producer, and creative director, I’ve worked in both entertainment and corporate communications, but throughout that career, the common thread has been bringing people and ideas together.

A Career in Storytelling 

For more than two decades, I worked as a professional screenwriter, developing projects for companies including Paramount, Universal, Hallmark, Lifetime, and Imagine Entertainment. My television work includes Magic Beyond Words: The J.K. Rowling Story, the Lifetime biopic about the author’s remarkable journey, and The Write Environment, the award-winning PBS series I created, produced, and hosted, featuring conversations with some of television’s leading writers and showrunners.

More recently, I wrote and directed I.M. Romance, an independent short film about two people finding a connection in an increasingly disconnected world. The film received multiple festival honors, including an award for Best Director  .

Ethics, Compliance & Leadership 

My career eventually took me in another direction as well. From 2012 through 2025, I worked at NAVEX, a global governance, risk, and compliance company, where I served as Creative Director and Senior Manager of Video Production. I led teams creating ethics and compliance programs seen by millions of employees around the world. The subjects weren't always simple. They involved workplace ethics, legal and regulatory issues, risk, and difficult decisions. My job was to work with attorneys, subject-matter experts, writers, editors, and production teams to understand those issues and communicate them clearly and responsibly. 

That experience taught me something that applies well beyond the workplace: good decisions begin with good information. You listen. You ask questions. You do your homework. You consider different points of view. And when a decision is made, you take responsibility for the result.

Service & Santa Clarita 

Service has also been part of my life since my college years, when I was a member of Alpha Phi Omega, the national service fraternity. The idea that we have an obligation to contribute to the communities around us has stayed with me ever since.

Today, Santa Clarita is home. My family chose to put down roots here more than five years ago, and my grandchildren attend school here. Like other families, we care about safe neighborhoods, good roads, responsible growth, strong city services, and preserving the quality of life that makes Santa Clarita such a special place to live.

I'm running for Santa Clarita City Council because I believe the experience I've accumulated over a lifetime can be put to good use here at home. I don't pretend to have every answer. But I know how to listen, research complicated issues, bring different perspectives together, make thoughtful decisions, and be accountable for the results.

That's the approach I would bring to City Council: listen carefully, do the homework, protect what works, and improve what matters.