Quinn, the feisty founder of the four year-old drama outfit, approached Kirsty Wark and Alan Clements over a year ago. She'd read a newspaper article about their ambitions and wanted to persuade them that 'now is the right time to go into drama'.
And the outcome? Quinn will produce primetime drama for the new entity, having happily bagged a 20 per cent stake in Wark Clements last week under the terms of the deal.
Clements says he was not so much flattered as 'puzzled' by her go-getting style. 'I thought she was a nutcase when I read the letter - then I scanned her CV and changed my mind,' he says.
The agreement - along with Monogram's success with ITV's Imogen's Face (pictured, above) and BBC 1's Out of Hours - reflects Quinn's rare combination of business brains and creative brawn.
'She's one of the best pitchers in the business,' claims Clare Birks, chief executive of Southern Star Circle, with whom Monogram has a development and distribution deal.
'People brought up in the English system are at times deferential and Machiavellian behind the scenes,' says former Central Films managing director Ted Childs. 'Eileen just goes for it.'
US-born Quinn admits selling and marketing come naturally to her. As one former boss puts it: 'She does the dog and pony show very well indeed.'
Quinn jokes that Clements stole her line - that negotiating sales is as creative as making programmes - when they first met. After that she knew they would 'work together for a long time'.
Executives describe her as pragmatic and persistent. They recall a pushy woman who will fight 'to the death' for her programmes. Quinn can be 'mean financially to her directors', says talent agency Peter Fraser Dunlop (PFD) co-chairman Anthony Jones.
This, however, didn't prevent him from doing business with the producer.
Jones recalls that, while at Initial, Quinn asked him if he had anything 'on the shelf'. There was a show called Have Your Cake and Eat It that the BBC had mothballed. 'Eileen picked it up, revived it and dusted it off and eventually got it aired on the BBC,' says Jones.
Doggedness is the 'soul' of producing, according to Quinn - though it can also be a weakness. 'It hasn't always worked in my favour,' she says.
'You tend to stand out if you are aggressive.'
One former journalist says she 'went mental' after a story scuppered Initial completing a BBC deal. 'Eileen's certainly got a reputation for having a harder edge,' says the journalist source. 'She bit my ear off a couple of times.'
But Childs, her former boss and 'mentor', claims she is 'quite rueful' when she gets it wrong. Charming and wily, she is clearly not too big for her boots to take business advice from unlikely sources.
At first, Quinn thought she would set up a sister company to Initial Film and Television where she was head of drama, but she couldn't think of a name. Monogram, the idea her mother suggested, is literally a 'small Initial'. The name stuck even after it became clear that Quinn would go it alone, at the tender age of 32.
Educated in California, Rome and London, Quinn says she 'started most things young', marrying one Englishman after another - once aged 20 and again at 28.
'I don't advise it,' she laughs, now a divorcee.
Out of her vitality comes a list of undertakings that are impressive for the 36-year old. She has been a member of Women in Film and Television since its inception in 1990, with a stint as a board director, and contributes regularly to writers' surgery Arista, where she is popular with film-makers.
But Quinn stresses it's not all work and no play. In seeking to give her small indie 'strategic advantage', she was attracted to Wark Clements' philosophy about striking a balance in life. 'And you don't hear that real often around the Groucho Club,' she says with a Californian twang.
Clements surely admires her own maverick approach. 'You don't buy in to Eileen to change her,' states PFD co-chairman Tim Corrie. 'You can take the girl out of America but you can't take America out of the girl,'quips Quinn - ever eager to have the final say.
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