Saturday, December 15, 2007

Cocoa Lounge NOW: 8 of The Most Powerful Black Women in Entertainment

Cocoa Lounge NOW: 8 of The Most Powerful Black Women in Entertainment

The Hollywood Reporter recently announced its 16th Annual, Power 100 Women in Entertainment List:
When the Hollywood Reporter pulished its first Women in Entertainment special issue on Dec. 8, 1992, only one woman headed the motion picture division of a studio--Sherry Lansing...Fifteen years after our first report, it's almost commonplace to see women seated at the head of the table in film and television, as well as shepherding production studios, agencies and cable networks. In fact, this year's Power 100 features more women with titles of president and chairman than in any of the previous special issues we've published.


Of the 100 buiness-savvy, female power-players listed, a solid 8% were African American women, a good sign, as black women are comfortably filling executive chairs in and outside of the entertainment industry. Enough of our gushing...
Without further adu, and in no particular order, meet 8 of the Most Powerful Black Women in Entertainment:


  • Vanessa Morrison, President, Fox Animation

  • Lorrie Bartlett, Partner, The Gersh Agency

  • Christina Norman, President, MTV

  • Tracey Edmonds, President and COO, Our Stories Films

  • Nina Shaw, Founding Partner, Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein & Lezcano

  • Debra Lee, Chairman And CEO, BET

  • Sylvia Rhone, President, Universal Motown Records

  • Oprah Winfrey, Chairman, Harpo Inc.


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's always good to see list like this one because the more sisters there are with some level of power the more we will see change happening in movies, music, and tv.

Anonymous said...

Nice to see us on the list though I have SERIOUS issues with Ms. Lee and her tenure @ BET.

Anonymous said...

I also have a problem with Debra Lee...she ushered in some of the worst programming I have every seen on TV

LeAnne@Hairs My Story Team said...

A black woman is the President of MTV?
Interesting.

Can we ask her to make more appropiate television when it comes to representing women of other races? She needs to do better when it comes to asian and latin women. White women, too.Equal representation for all races.

Although, I have noticed a change in MTV's preception of blacks. For a while there it was getting real "blackface".
once upon a time...hairs my story

The Cocoa Lounge said...

BET definitely has a lot of catching up to do in terms of programming. "Hot Ghetto Mess" nearly toppled all of their recent efforts. I think most of us were wondering how something like that could sneak past not one but ALL of the executives at the company. I think they've learned though, and was really impressed with Sunday Best and Baldwin Hills. Hopefully there are no more slip ups and Debra Lee and her team can get serious about cleaning up BET's reputation.

Jeanne, I'm with you. It's very interesting that two black women are head of MTV and Fox Animation since both are notorious for catering to the 18 - 25 white male demo. It's so refreshing to see them in those positions not because they can really do anything earth-shattering about black representation on those networks (though they can help) but because it proves that black female executives are breaking through that old glass ceiling and that's cool.

Anonymous said...

It was just announced that Christina Norman will be stepping down from MTV at the end of the month. I have much respect for her as a woman of colour who literally worked her way up the ladder to become the head of one of the most powerful entertainment brands in the world. I'm very interested to see what she will do next.

The Cocoa Lounge said...

I heard about Christina and couldn't believe it. It was so nice knowing that we had some sort of representation at MTV but the *rumor* is that she may be moving to head up Oprah's OWN (the new Oprah Winfrey Network). If it's anywhere near true, that could be a nice move...but only time will tell.

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