The gig: As controlling carnality admiral of aptitude and casting for the CW, Lori Openden finds all those appealing humans who ample the network's teen-angst shows, including "The Vampire Diaries," "Gossip Girls" and the awful advancing "Nikita" and "Hellcats."

Hardscrabble roots: A built-in Angeleno, Openden grew up poor in a boxy Baldwin Hills neighborhood, area she was aloft by a individual mother and went to Dorsey Top School. "We didn't accept any money.... We struggled to get by, and I knew annihilation I capital to do I'd accept to pay for myself."

Learning the ropes: In top school, Openden got the amphitheater bug but bound accomplished she enjoyed getting abaft the scenes critiquing the actors rather than getting onstage with them. After admission from Cal State Northridge, which she paid for by alive as a nurse's aide, Openden got an entry-level job at William Morris Agency. "I was a secretary; we were not administration in those days." She fabricated the a lot of of it. "I took the account of the television administration meetings. I knew aggregate traveling on."