Diversity Awards Dinner

Charlie Collier was named Chief Executive Officer, FOX Entertainment, in October 2018. He is responsible for driving the overall creative and business vision for FOX Entertainment – including the FOX network; its in-house unscripted studio, FOX Alternative Entertainment; animation studio Bento Box Entertainment; streaming platform Tubi; and the recently launched Non-Fungible Token (NFT) unit Blockchain Creative Labs – supervising all content development, creating new strategies for growth and overseeing all of its operations.

Under Collier’s supervision, FOX won the 2020-2021 broadcast season, marking the second consecutive season the network has ranked #1. Collier’s FOX Entertainment also houses FOX Alternative Entertainment, the company’s studio that produces such hit programs as THE MASKED SINGER, I CAN SEE YOUR VOICE and NAME THAT TUNE and all-new series ALTER EGO; the award-winning animation studio Bento Box Entertainment, which produces content for FOX, including the Emmy Award-winning hit BOB’S BURGERS and new series DUNCANVILLE, THE GREAT NORTH and HOUSEBROKEN, as well as programming for other broadcast, streaming and cable platforms; and Tubi, FOX Entertainment’s fast-growing ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) streaming service, featuring more than 30,000 movies and television series, and news content that’s available in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Australia. Additionally, as an integral member of FOX Corporation’s senior leadership team, Collier contributes to the parent company’s growth and continued evolution.

Prior to joining FOX, Collier was President and General Manager of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios, overseeing the creative and business operations of all three divisions. He joined AMC as General Manager in 2006 and was promoted to President in 2008; he added the SundanceTV post to his responsibilities in April 2015. During his 12-year tenure, Collier transformed AMC into one of the most relevant and heralded original programming brands and businesses in television. Under Collier’s leadership, AMC became a global entertainment powerhouse, introducing cultural and critical hits, including the Emmy® Award-winning “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad”; “The Walking Dead,” the highest-rated basic cable program in the history of television; and “Fear the Walking Dead” and “Better Call Saul,” which stand as the #1 and #2 top cable series premieres of all time in Live + Same Day viewing.

Collier joined AMC in 2006 from Court TV (now truTV) with a track record of driving brand, revenue and business growth. At Court TV, he served as executive vice president and general manager of advertising sales, where he more than quintupled its revenue from national ad sales, dramatically improved its positioning within the industry and played a key role in broadening the network’s appeal beyond courtroom programming and into entertainment programming in the investigation genre.

Prior to Court TV, Collier held roles at Oxygen Media, A+E Networks and TeleRep.

In 2019, Collier was named to The Hollywood Reporter 100, the publication’s list of the most powerful people in entertainment. That same year, he was featured in Variety’s third annual edition of Variety500, an index of the 500 most influential business leaders shaping the global media industry. Given his prior contributions to the cable industry and his current oversight of FOX Entertainment’s ad-supported streaming platform, Tubi, Collier also was among 2020’s Cablefax 100, which recognizes leaders in the multi-platform space.

Among his civic activities, Collier serves on the board of CancerCare, an organization devoted to helping not just cancer patients, but those around them touched by the disease.  Additionally, he sits on the boards of The Paley Center for Media, the American Film Institute and the NCTA – The Internet & Television Association. He is married and has four children.

Rosalyn Durant is Senior Vice President of Operations for Walt Disney World Resort, overseeing the Disney Springs shopping, dining and entertainment destination; both Walt Disney World Water Parks, and the resort’s sports operations, including ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. She is a member of The Walt Disney Company’s CEO Diversity and Inclusion Council.

Since taking on her role at Walt Disney World Resort in March 2020, Roz played a key part in working with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to successfully restart the 2019-20 season and host the NBA Championships at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, and with Major League Soccer on the MLS is Back Tournament also hosted at the Complex.

Roz was previously Senior Vice President of College Networks at ESPN, where she set the strategic direction for ESPNU, SEC Network, Longhorn Network and the ACC Network, which she helped launch.

Her numerous recent honors include inclusion in Sports Business Journal’s “2019 Power Player” list, Savoy Magazine’s “2020 Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate

America,” and recognition as one of four 2020 “Women of the Year” by WISE (Women in Sports and Events: The leading voice and resource for professional women in the business of sports).

Roz is on the Board of Directors of the T. Howard Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to increasing diversity in the multimedia and entertainment industry, and is an alumna of the Foundation’s internship program.

Roz is a graduate of the University of South Carolina where she received a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism and a minor in marketing.

Soledad O’Brien is an award-winning documentarian, journalist, speaker, author, and philanthropist, who founded Soledad O’Brien Productions, a multi-platform media production company dedicated to telling empowering and authentic stories on a range of social issues. She anchors and produces the Hearst TV political magazine program “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien” and is a correspondent for HBO Real Sports. She is also host of the Quake Media podcast “Very Opinionated with Soledad O’Brien.

She is a thought leader, with over 1.3 million Twitter followers, who has a national impact through her speeches, numerous documentaries and her presence on the op-ed pages of platforms like the New York Times and Huffington Post. She has anchored shows on CNN, MSNBC, and NBC, and reported for Fox, A&E, Oxygen, Nat Geo, the PBS NewsHour, WebMD, and Al Jazeera America, among others.

O’Brien’s work has been recognized with three Emmy awards, twice with the George Foster Peabody Award, three times with the Gracie Award, which honors women in media, twice with Cine Awards for her work in documentary films and also with an Alfred I. DuPont Award.

As President of Publicis Media’s Multicultural Practice, Cultural Quotient, Lisa Torres has created a more modern, data-centric way to approach the multicultural marketplace, collectively leading over 140 multicultural experts at the largest targeted cultural digital investor in the US. To ensure Publicis Media remains a leader in the industry, Torres and her team take a research and data-driven approach to helping clients better understand their diverse consumer segments, thereby pushing the marketplace forward with the latest insights, inclusionary marketing strategies, and thought leadership.

Torres was instrumental in launching Publicis Media’s groundbreaking Once & For All Coalition,  a multi-year, industry-wide initiative to remove industry barriers to equitable financial opportunity and representation of underserved and ethnically diverse suppliers, ultimately helping marketers uncover opportunities that more closely mirror their brand values and drive growth with audiences in a multicultural world.

Torres is additionally heavily involved in Talent Engagement and Inclusion initiatives throughout the company. As a member of Publicis Groupe’s Diversity Progress Council, she plays an instrumental role in driving the organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts with ongoing measurement and accountability. She is also a founding member of the Publicis Media Inclusion Council, an executive sponsor of the Young Professionals Network business resource group (BRG), and leads Publicis Media’s renowned Multicultural Talent Pipeline – a proprietary educational program created to introduce diverse college students to the opportunities within Publicis Groupe and industry at-large.

Because of her breadth of knowledge and experience, Torres is consistently is known as a renowned thought leader and has spoken conferences across the US including CES, Portada Multicultural Marketing Conference, Hispanic TV Summit, ARF Leading with Multicultural Speaker Series, Horowitz Cultural Insights Forum, and was profiled by Forbes in 2020. In 2021, Torres was shortlisted in the Campaign US Power of Purpose awards; named a Multichannel News Women to Watch honoree in 2019; and received the Executive Leadership in Hispanic TV and Video award at the 2018 Hispanic TV Summit. In 2017, Torres joined the Steering Committee for the ARF’s newly-formed Cultural Effectiveness Council and served on the ANA AIMM Committee. Additionally, she has been honored by the Association of Hispanic Agencies (AHAA) as Hispanic Executive of the Year (2012), named President of the 4A’S Multicultural Committee (2008), and was recognized by Crain’s New York Top 40 Under 40 and Mediaweek Media All-Star lists in 2004.

Prior to her current role, Torres served as President of ZenithOptimedia Multicultural from 2011 through 2016, where she worked closely with the agency’s strategy and investment teams to equip their clients with integrated and dedicated multicultural expertise. With more than 25 years of experience, Torres has held positions across agencies including MPG (Havas Media), Carat (Dentsu) and others.