Diversity Awards Dinner

Starz, a Lionsgate company, is a leading global media and entertainment company that produces and distributes premium streaming content to worldwide audiences across subscription television platforms.

Starz is home to the flagship domestic STARZ® brand, STARZ ENCORE, 17 premium pay TV channels and the associated on-demand and online services, including the highly-rated STARZ app. With the launch of the STARZPLAY international premium streaming platform and STARZ PLAY Arabia, Starz is expanding its global footprint in a growing number of territories.

Sold through multichannel video distributors, including cable operators, satellite television providers, telecommunications companies, and other online and digital platforms, Starz offers subscribers more than 10,000 distinct premium television episodes and feature films, including STARZ Original series, first-run movies and other popular programming.

Nahnatchka Khan is the Creator and Executive Producer for the television show Fresh Off the Boat. Prior to that, she was the creator and Executive Producer of Don’t Trust the B—- In Apartment 23, which aired for two seasons on ABC, from 2011-2012. Before creating her own series, she served as an Executive Producer on the FOX animated show American Dad. She is in post-production on the feature film ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE starring Ali Wong and Randall Park, which she directed for Netflix.

Melvin Mar, Executive Producer, began his career at Dreamworks SKG, Scott Rudin Productions, where he built a relationship with Orange County director Jake Kasdan. They have since worked together on films including The TV Set, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Bad Teacher, Sex Tape, JUMANJI: Welcome to the Jungle and the hit television comedy New Girl.

Besides serving as executive producer on ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat and Speechless, Mar served as an executive producer on Weird Loners and The Grinder for FOX. Mar and Kasdan are developing comedies and dramas for cable and network television at Twentieth Century Fox Television.

Mar lives in Los Angeles with his family and is a lifelong Lakers fan, despite the last eight seasons of complete heartbreak.

Christina Spade, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the CBS Corporation oversees all financial operations of the Company, including treasury, tax, accounting, internal audit, information security and real estate.

Spade has served as Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Strategy for Showtime Networks Inc. (SNI) since February 2013. In this position, she was responsible for all financial matters relating to Showtime Networks’ businesses, including oversight of finance, strategy and information systems for the network’s divisions, which encompasses budgeting, planning, forecasting and accounting of all the business segments within SNI. She was instrumental in the successful scaling of the SHOWTIME OTT platform, which launched in July 2015 and has grown significantly with sizable growth to come. In addition, Spade has been the key financial architect of numerous real estate deals and transactions at SHOWTIME. She also serves as a member of the board for Smithsonian Channel^™.

Previously, she was Senior Vice President, Affiliate Finance and Business Operations for Showtime Networks Inc., where she led the financial and business operations’ management of distribution revenue and sales, marketing and creative expenses for SNI. Spade has worked in different capacities at Showtime Networks during her over 22 years with the Company.

She is currently an executive member of the board of directors for the T. Howard Foundation as Treasurer and a NY Chapter Board member of Financial Executives International. She founded and is president of ATR Children’s Foundation, which is a non-profit organization established to help children in need. Spade was selected as a 2017 WICT Wonder Woman and served as an ongoing executive mentor and speaker in WICT’s mentorship program.

Spade is a CPA and graduated with a B.S. in accounting from St. Joseph’s University.

Susan Zirinsky, President and Senior Executive Producer, CBS News, is responsible for all news content for the CBS Television Network, CBS News digital platforms and CBS News Radio.

Zirinsky, an acclaimed journalist and highly respected senior executive producer at CBS News, became President and Senior Executive Producer of CBS News on March 1, 2019 and reports to the CEO of the CBS Corporation.

Zirinsky began her career at CBS News in the Washington bureau two weeks after the Watergate break-in. Over the next four decades she produced a wide variety of award-winning documentaries and programs, and she covered a range of historic stories, from the Gulf War to the student uprising in Tiananmen Square, from the White House for 10 years to the 9/11 attacks, and from the Paris terrorist attacks to the mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla. School.

Prior to taking on her new role, Zirinsky was the senior executive producer of the award-winning 48 HOURS and was responsible for numerous CBS News breaking news specials.  She was also the senior executive producer of 48 HOURS: NCIS and the senior executive producer of the CBS primetime series WHISTLEBLOWER.