Kathleen Kennedy says the transition of power at Lucasfilm has been "seamless".
The 72-year-old producer stood down as president of the Star Wars studio in January after 14 years and explained how her successors Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan had long been prepared to take the reins.
Kathleen told Variety: "It didn't just happen six months ago. I spent 10 years talking Dave into gradually stepping into live action. He had so much experience in animation. He's so knowledgeable about Star Wars and loves it so much, it's really been a 10-year mentoring process for both of them.
"Lynwen came out of Industrial Light and Magic. She was my GM the entire time. I would argue that the transition has been pretty seamless."
Kennedy became Lucasfilm president when the Walt Disney Company acquired the studio in 2012 and explained that she did her best to put the fans first when it came to Star Wars content.
She said: "I really segued into (that job) when the fan expectations collided with social media. That really has created a kind of explosion. It's always has been important to Lucasfilm, that the fans are a huge part of what the franchise is.
"So that was something that was new to me and something that grew over time, but it's remained incredibly important to the company."
Kennedy was speaking at the Motion Picture Sound Editors' annual Golden Reel Awards in Los Angeles – where she received an honorary prize for her work on movies such as Back to the Future and Jurassic Park.
She said: "Sound helps root the story. It helps represent where characters are, not only geographically, but emotionally. It helps foreshadow the intent of a character or define what they're going through. In short, it takes the audience on the journey of the film.
"I've been incredibly lucky in my career to work with some of the absolute titans of this craft, people who taught me very early on that sound isn't just pasted on at the end, it's the heartbeat of the story that should be conceived and designed and refined from the earliest stages of the process."
Kathleen recalled that working on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial with Steven Spielberg and legendary sound designer Ben Burtt was a vital lesson in the importance of sound in film.
The producer said: "(Steven and I) spent so much time worrying about how E.T. was going to look, but it wasn't until we heard those heavy, shuffling footsteps and the raspy, melodic breathing that E.T. became real. He wasn't a puppet anymore, he was a friend.
"That friend's voice came from recording a woman named Pat Welsh, who smoked two packs of Kools cigarettes every day. Ben overheard her at a photography store in San Anselmo, and waited outside on the sidewalk for her to come out. He asked her if she'd like to be an alien in a movie."
