William Roetzheim (CEO)
William Roetzheim is a serial entrepreneur who began his career as a pilot in the U.S. Navy where he taught himself programming and wrote an artificial intelligence–based program used throughout the U.S. Pacific Fleet. After leaving the Navy, he turned his attention to building businesses in the tech world and as the COO of Tetra Tech Services helped elevate the company’s sales dramatically before helping to sell it to Honeywell. He founded the Booz Allen & Hamilton San Diego office, which is still going strong, then the software development company Marotz, Inc., which rapidly grew to over 150 staff in five offices worldwide and was featured on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing companies. He then founded Cost Xpert Group, another successful endeavor, before taking a three-year hiatus from tech in 2006, to focus on another love: poetry. He founded Level 4 Press as a poetry publishing company, winning literary awards and building the infrastructure that would later become the foundation for the current iteration of the company.
In 2019, he partnered with Randy Becker to pivot Level 4 and make it a publishing company specifically focused on great books that are destined to be great film and television series.
Randy Becker (EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT)
A graduate of Brown University, Randy Becker is an Emmy-nominated producer who has spent his career navigating the line between art and business. He began as an actor, starring on Broadway in Love! Valour! Compassion! (Tony Award-winner), then found his true passion: working with writers. He co-founded Acuna Entertainment, a literary management and production company. AE shared clients with powerhouse Hollywood agencies like CAA, ICM, WME, and APA, sold film and TV to the major studios and networks, and helped shepherd indie films like Lila & Eve (starring Jennifer Lopez and Viola Davis), Touched (starring Jenna Elfman), and The Great Buck Howard (starring John Malkovich, Emily Blunt, and Tom Hanks). Randy went off on his own in 2009, launching NexTV Entertainment, a literary management and consulting company and also launched the yearly Social Impact Conference bringing artists, Nobel Prize-winners and business leaders together to instigate positive social change.
In 2019 Randy partnered with William Roetzheim to launch what is now Level 4 Films and soon added Level 4 Management to the company.
Justin Steger (FILM/TV EXECUTIVE)
After completing his MBA at California State University Long Beach Justin Steger began working in the legal/business affairs department at Lionsgate. During his time at the film studio, they produced hugely successful franchises such as Twilight, The Divergent Series, and The Hunger Games, and acquired Summit Entertainment. In 2014, Justin moved to Grindstone Entertainment, a subsidiary of Lionsgate, and in 2016 to the television production company Electus. At Electus, he switched to the creative development side and eventually managed their entire scripted slate, including Jane the Virgin at the CW and Will Arnett’s Flaked at Netflix. In 2018, he became an independent producer with projects at MGM and Propagate Content, and in 2020 he joined Level 4 Films, bringing his studio experience and industry relationships to the team. Currently, he helps develop and sell film and television adapted from Level 4’s diverse library of IP, he oversees Level 4’s stable of on-staff screenwriters, and he represents a select group of film and television writers under the Level 4 Management banner. Justin is a founding member of Level 4’s BIPOC Writers Book-to-Screen Fellowship.
Anna Termine (RIGHTS DIRECTOR)
Anna Termine has been working in trade and academic publishing for over thirty years. A subsidiary rights specialist, her particular areas of expertise include foreign language translations, film/tv and audio rights, as well as license and contract negotiations. She started her career at the Globe Pequot Press (later Lyons Press after an acquisition), where she was director of licensing and rights. She then became exclusive film rights agent for all divisions and imprints at Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. Anna also worked for the California-based academic publisher Sage Publications, where she was responsible for licensing and rights. She has attended international publishing trade shows such as the Frankfurt and London book fairs for over twenty-five years and was the president of the Independent Travel Publishers Association (ITPA), which galvanized forty publishers to come together for marketing, cross-promotion, and trade show promotion. Recently, Anna helped launch the general trade publisher Sibylline Press. She is excited to be part of Level 4’s mission to bring great books to both readers around the globe and to film/television buyers.
Karen Petersen (SENIOR EDITOR)
Karen Petersen has been working with words for almost twenty years, after earning a master’s in journalism from the University of Oregon in 2004. She started in newspapers, at the Albany Democrat-Herald, first as a copy editor and later as city editor, a position in which she relished supervising the reporters and editing all local news stories. But her dream was to edit novels, so she transitioned to fiction editing in 2014, freelancing for clients writing in a variety of genres: mystery, young adult fantasy, even middle grade and children’s literature. She was hired by Level 4 Press at the start of 2020 and has enjoyed the many editorial hats she’s been asked to wear: developmental editor, line editor, copy editor, and proofreader. She is currently the senior editor tasked with ensuring the overall quality, consistency and efficiency of the editorial process within Level 4. She loves reading (her stock answer to “Who’s your favorite author?” is David Mitchell, though almost anything with a compelling plot and vivid characters might grace her nightstand). She’s excited to help Level 4 put out great books that are destined to become great films and TV shows.