This event is by invitation only. Please email mediacouncil@paleycenter.org to request an invitation.
Session 1 | 5:15 PM – 6:00 PM
INTERSECTIONS OF INEQUALITY:
Tackling Ageism, Racism, and Sexism in the Workplace
Valerie Jarrett, CEO, Obama Foundation
Laura Jarrett, Co-Anchor, Saturday TODAY; NBC News Senior Legal Correspondent
Moderator: Jonathan Capehart, Associate Editor, The Washington Post and Anchor The Saturday/Sunday Show on MSNBC
This critical conversation explores how ageism, racism, and sexism intersect to limit career opportunities. Featuring multi-generational leaders, We'll examine the media’s role in influencing workplace generational gaps, shaping public opinion, and furthering strategies for creating inclusive environments. The panel will address ways to bridge generational divides, promote collaboration, and combat stereotypes in professional settings and media representation.
Session 2 | 6:05 PM – 6:50 PM
BEYOND THE SIDELINES:
Race, Media, and the Future of Women’s Sports
Allison Feaster, VP, Team Operations & Organizational Growth, Boston Celtics
Brittany McCallum, VP, Basketball Marketing, KLUTCH Sports Group
Moderator: Malika Andrews, Host, NBA Today and NBA Countdown, ESPN
This critical conversation will examine the nuanced media coverage of Black and Brown women athletes from diverse backgrounds in sports, while discussing how varying levels of visibility can influence career opportunities and recognition. Through the lens of basketball the panel will explore the potential effects of these differences, including their impact on brand partnerships, endorsement deals, and other professional opportunities that may be more accessible to some athletes than others. Together, we'll explore ways to celebrate the achievements of all female athletes and support their potential to thrive both on and off the court.
Session Partner: Nielsen
Cocktail Reception: 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Co-Hosts
Debra L. Lee
Founder & Board Chair, Leading Women Defined
Debra L. Lee, Founder of Leading Women Defined, Co-founder of The Monarchs Collective and author of I AM DEBRA LEE, is one of the most influential female voices in the entertainment industry, with a trailblazing career spanning over 3 decades. For 13 years, Lee served as the Chairman & CEO of BET Networks, the leading provider of entertainment for the African-American audience and consumers of Black culture globally.
During her tenure, Lee helmed BET’s reinvigorated approach to original authentic programming that led to hits such as The Game, The New Edition Story, Being Mary Jane, The BET Awards, Black Girls Rock!, BET Honors and many more.
In September 2009, Lee managed the launch of Centric, a 24-hour music and entertainment network. Under her guidance, Centric was rebranded in 2014 as the first network designed for Black women. She also oversaw the company’s current growth initiatives, including international distribution of the brand in Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, France, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to her being named Chairman and CEO, Lee was President and COO of BET Networks for almost 10 years, during which she guided the company to consistent increases in viewership, revenue, and earnings. She first joined BET as Vice President and General Counsel in 1986 after serving more than five years as an attorney with Steptoe & Johnson, a Washington D. C. based corporate law firm. Prior to that, she served as a law clerk to the late Honorable Barrington Parker of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s 100 Most Powerful Women in Entertainment and Billboard’s Power 100, Lee’s achievements in her 30+ year career in the industry have earned her numerous accolades from across the cable industry, as well as recognition as one of this country’s most respected business executives. Lee was honored with the Distinguished Leadership Vanguard Award by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame, and The Advertising Hall of Fame.
In February 2017, the GRAMMY Organization recognized Lee with the Industry Icons Award, in recognition of her major contributions to American music and culture. Lee is currently the first and only woman to receive this distinguished honor.
Lee is a committed philanthropist, a Brown University Trustee emeritus; and sits on the Board of Trustees for the American Film Institute, The Paley Center for Media, and Cedars Sinai Hospital Board.
In 2011, Debra was appointed by President Obama to the White House Management Advisory Board during his tenure. Lee also currently sits on the Board of Directors for corporations including, Burberry Group, Plc, Marriott International, Procter & Gamble, and Warner Bros. Discovery.
In March 2023, Lee published I AM DEBRA LEE: A MEMOIR, which profiled her trailblazing career and experiences as a high-powered Black female executive in the entertainment industry. I AM DEBRA LEE was lauded by Kirkus Reviews as “a provocatively frank and inspiring memoir."
Lee earned her Juris doctorate at Harvard Law School, while simultaneously earning a master’s degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. She graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in political science with an emphasis in Asian politics. In 2014, Debra was awarded with a Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) from her alma mater, Brown University.
Maureen J. Reidy
President & CEO, The Paley Center for Media
Maureen J. Reidy is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Paley Center for Media, the world’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving media’s history and showcasing its powerful shaping influence on culture and society. The Paley Center, with locations in New York and Los Angeles, operates the renowned Paley Museum offering respected, best-in-class programs and experiences where media, sports, gaming, and entertainment come together.
With over twenty-five years of experience in the C-suite, Ms. Reidy has a reputation as a thought leader known for her expertise in board governance, expanding businesses, and delivering bottom-line results as well as her commitment to DE&I initiatives that have generated proven results and made a meaningful impact.
Previously, Ms. Reidy served as CEO of The Argus Group, a full-service strategic marketing agency, and as Chief Operating Officer of IMG Fashion, where she ran the day-to-day worldwide operations and expanded its portfolio of media assets. Before IMG, Ms. Reidy was selected by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to join his administration as CEO of NYC Big Events and later assumed the additional role of New York City’s Chief Marketing Officer.
During her tenure in the Bloomberg Administration, Ms. Reidy served on the Mayor’s Latin Media and Entertainment Commission and the New York City Economic Development Advisory Council. She was credited with bringing the 2005 Country Music Association Awards and the 2006 Latin Grammy Awards to New York City – marking the first and only time these events were held in New York. She also ran the related Host Committees and served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Host Committee for the 2004 Republican National Convention when it was held in New York City.
Before joining the Bloomberg Administration, Ms. Reidy served as the President & CEO of The Miss Universe Organization, a joint venture with CBS. Ms. Reidy began her career as a CPA at Price Waterhouse in the Entertainment and Media practice. She currently serves on the Board of the Latin Recording Academy and on the Board of Trustees of The Paley Center for Media, and previously served on the Board of Directors for the VH1 Save the Music Foundation and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Dream Team.
Ms. Reidy has received multiple accolades for her leadership throughout her career, including the 2021 City & State’s annual Above and Beyond Award, which honors distinguished women in New York, and was a 2021 recipient of the Cynopsis Top Women in Media Award. She was selected to serve on the judging panel for the MIT Solve and the Elevate Prize Foundation’s inaugural Elevate Prize in 2020, which aims to support and amplify the work of those tackling the world’s most challenging problems. Crain’s New York Business named Ms. Reidy as one of the magazine’s top “40 under 40.”
Featured Speakers
Malika Andrews
Host, NBA Today and NBA Countdown, ESPN
Malika Andrews is the face of ESPN’s NBA studio coverage, serving as the host of ESPN’s weekday NBA studio show, NBA Today (2021), covering the league nationally. She also hosts all editions of NBA Countdown. Her work has appeared across multiple ESPN platforms including ESPN.com, SportsCenter and ESPN Radio. Andrews made her debut as a sideline reporter during the 2019-20 season at the ESPN World of Sports Complex in Florida, serving as a sideline reporter throughout the NBA Playoffs and making her one of the youngest sideline reporters ever for a Conference Finals telecast. Andrews was one of the first reporters on ground to report from the NBA’s temporary Florida campus after the league’s decision to resume the season following a 4 month hiatus due to outbreak of COVID-19.
Prior to joining ESPN in October 2018, Andrews worked for one year as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Prior to joining the Tribune, Andrews worked for one year as a James Reston Reporting Fellow in the sports department at The New York Times. Highlights from her newspaper career include traveling to Lake Tahoe as part of a team of journalists that reconstructed the events between Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels. She also reported on the impact of the Sonoma County wildfires on the equine industry during fall 2017. Additionally, Andrews has covered a Super Bowl, and looked at how the Larry Nassar sexual assault case affected children’s gymnastics.
A native of Oakland, Calif., Andrews attended the University of Portland, where she earned a bachelor of arts degree and graduated with honors. While at the University of Portland, Andrews served as the editor-in-chief of The Beacon, the university’s student newspaper. She received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists, and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association for her work. In 2016, Andrews won the Best Writer Award among Oregon college students.
Andrews is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and sits on the NABJ Sports Task Force Scholarship Committee. She was honored with the 2021 NABJ Michael J. Feeney Emerging Journalist of the Year Award.
Jonathan Capehart
Associate Editor, The Washington Post and Anchor, The Saturday/Sunday Show on MSNBC
Jonathan Capehart is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associate Editor of The Washington Post. Since 2007, he has been an opinion writer at The Post. He was a member of The Post’s editorial board until 2022. He hosts the weekly Post podcast “Capehart” and the weekly Post Live show “First Look.”
At MSNBC, Capehart is the anchor of “The Saturday Show with Jonathan Capehart,” which debuted in February 2024 and “The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart,” which has been on the air since 2020. His MSNBC special “A Promised Land: A Conversation with Barack Obama” was nominated in 2021 for an Emmy for “Outstanding News Discussion & Analysis.” His MSNBC special “Pride of the White House” won a GLAAD Media Award for “Outstanding TV Journalism - Long Form” in 2022.
At PBS, Capehart serves as a political analyst on “The PBS Newshour” and is featured on the popular Friday segment “Brooks and Capehart.”
Capehart has moderated panels and conversations at the 92nd Street Y, the Connecticut Forum, Aspen Ideas Festival and for the Aspen Institute, the Center for American Progress and at the Brussels Forum of the German Marshall Fund. Capehart was a Spring 2019 Fellow at the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service. In 2022, he received an honorary degree from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. He received an honorary degree from his alma mater, Carleton College, in 2023 and was elected to its Board of Trustees in 2024. His memoir, “Black Boys Like Me: Lessons from A Search for Home,” will be published by Grand Central Publishing in 2025.
From 2002 to 2004, Capehart was deputy editorial page editor of the New York Daily News and served on that paper’s editorial board from 1993 to 2000. In 1999, his 16-month editorial campaign to save the famed Apollo Theater earned him and the board the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. Capehart left the Daily News in July 2000 to become the national affairs columnist at Bloomberg News, and took a leave from this position in February 2001 to serve as a policy adviser to Michael Bloomberg in his first campaign for New York City mayor.
Allison Feaster
VP, Team Operations & Organizational Growth, Boston Celtics
Allison Feaster is Vice President of Team Operations & Organizational Growth for the Boston Celtics. She is a former professional basketball player, a global citizen, and a trailblazer in the sports industry who is highly regarded for her leadership and teambuilding skills.
During her decorated college basketball career, Feaster was the first player in any sport to be honored as Ivy League Player of the Year three times, leading the first-ever NCAA Division-I Tournament upset of No. 16 seed Harvard against No. 1 seed Stanford. She was a first-round WNBA draft pick and went on to an 17-year professional playing career in the US, Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal.
Following her retirement from playing in 2016, Feaster joined the NBA’s Basketball Operations Management Development Program. After serving as the lead of Player Personnel & Coach Relations for the NBA G-League, she joined the Boston Celtics organization where she currently leads Team Operations & Organizational Growth.
Beyond the court, Feaster serves on the NCAA’s Board of Governors, and she is co-lead for Boston Celtics United, the Celtics’ social justice initiative to impact social and racial inequities in Black and Brown communities in Greater Boston. She maintains her role as an active public speaker, a champion of the advancement of women and girls, and serves as a global advocate for sport, including serving as a Sports Envoy for the US Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Feaster is a graduate of Harvard College (BA, Economics) and the Universidad Europea (MBA).
Valerie Jarrett
CEO, Obama Foundation
The Honorable Valerie Jarrett is Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of the Barack Obama Foundation. She is also a Senior Distinguished Fellow at The University of Chicago Law School. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward, published in April 2019.
She serves as Board Chairman of Civic Nation. Jarrett also serves on the boards of Walgreens Boot Alliance, Inc., Ralph Lauren Corporation, Sweetgreen, Inc., Ariel Investments, The University of Chicago, and the Sesame Street Workshop. Jarrett also serves on the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women Advisory Board, the Bank of America Enterprise Executive Development Council, and the Microsoft Advisory Council.
Ms. Jarrett was the Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama from 2009-2017, making her the longest serving senior advisor to a president in history. She oversaw the Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and Chaired the White House Council on Women and Girls.
Ms. Jarrett has a background in both the public and private sectors. She served as the Chief Executive Officer of The Habitat Company in Chicago, the Commissioner of Planning and Development for the city of Chicago, Deputy Chief of Staff for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and she practiced law for ten years in the private and public sector. She also previously served as the director of numerous corporate and not-for-profit boards including leadership roles as Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Stock Exchange, Chairman of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board of Trustees, Vice Chairman of the University of Chicago Board of Trustees, Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Chair of Chicago Transit Board.
Ms. Jarrett has also received numerous awards and honorary degrees, including TIME’s “100 Most Influential People” Award.
Jarrett received her B.A. from Stanford University in 1978 and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981.
Laura Jarrett
Co-Anchor, Saturday TODAY; NBC News Senior Legal Correspondent
Laura Jarrett is the co-anchor of Saturday TODAY and NBC News’ Senior Legal Correspondent, whose reporting appears across all NBC News and MSNBC platforms, including, TODAY, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, NBC News NOW, and NBCNews.com.
Jarrett joined NBC News in January 2023 after spending six years covering the Justice Department and major legal stories for CNN. She was named co-anchor of Saturday TODAY in August 2023.
Since joining NBC News, Jarrett has been the lead legal correspondent covering the indictments of former President Donald Trump, the legal fight over access to the abortion pill mifepristone, as well as high profile Supreme Court cases and Justice Department investigations.
At CNN, Jarrett co-anchored Early Start with Christine Romans and served as a legal analyst on CNN's New Day. She was on the forefront of the biggest legal stories including the fallout over Texas' abortion ban and later the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the congressional investigations into the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and court battles over President Joe Biden's Covid-19 vaccine mandate.
Jarrett also covered high-profile cases, including the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial, Alec Baldwin's fatal on-set shooting, the Ahmaud Arbery shooting trial, and the trial over George Floyd's murder.
Jarrett joined CNN in 2016 as a correspondent based in Washington, D.C. and was one of the lead reporters covering Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference, the Trump administration's travel ban, the Justice Department Inspector General's report on the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information, the firings of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the 10 year anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s killing, and more.
Prior to joining CNN, Jarrett worked as an attorney in Chicago.
She is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she was Articles Selection co-chair for the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.
Brittany McCallum
Vice President, Basketball Marketing, KLUTCH Sports Group
Brittany McCallum is a marketing executive with over 12 years of global experience in business development, partner management, and athlete relations. With an unwavering passion for sports and marketing, McCallum currently serves as the Vice President of basketball marketing at KLUTCH Sports Group and plays a pivotal role in crafting and executing successful marketing strategies.
She spearheads initiatives that create incremental promotional and revenue opportunities for brands and athletes, including strategic partnerships, endorsements, sponsorships, licensing, merchandising, and influencer marketing, all contributing to elevating the stature of both brands and athletes.
Before KLUTCH Sports Group, McCallum previously worked at the National Basketball Association (NBA), where she managed partnerships with world-class brands, teams, esteemed athletes, and agencies across various tentpole events, ranging from the NBA and WNBA to NBA G League and USA Basketball properties.
McCallum earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Michigan State University, where she honed her communication and storytelling skills, becoming a compelling advocate for brands and athletes.
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