Cablefax The Magazine - December 2021 - 7

T 10op
the
Ayo Davis
President
Disney Branded Television
Davis, an 18-year Disney vet, received two promotions in less
than a year. In September, she was upped to her current role, replacing
longtime Disney exec Gary Marsh. She has had an active
12 months overseeing all live-action programming and helping
fuel the company's Disney+ streaming platform with imaginative
projects geared toward kids, tweens, teens and families. In
fact, buzz around Disney+ successfully drove an additional 12.4
million subs to the platform in August alone, rounding out total
subscribership at 116 million. No one is a better cheerleader
for Disney than Davis, who is proud of the company's efforts in
the area of diversity. " Access can be very different for various
groups of people, " she says. " The company has many programs
in play right now that are action-based and create change. "
Nina L. Diaz
President of Content & Chief Creative Officer
MTV Entertainment
Chief Creative Officer, Unscripted & Animation
Paramount+
As head of development and production across MTV Entertainment
Group's nine brands and studios, Diaz is known for challenging
the industry, but also for cultivating talent and building diverse
teams. She recently launched two initiatives designed to bolster a
new generation of BIPOC and women creators. The first is a directors'
program for creating films that showcase underrepresented
voices, and the other is a $250 million commitment to incubating
third-party production companies. " This last year has shown that
people can change through the power of storytelling, so we'll
start amplifying real issues,
making the invisible visible
and starting national
conversations, " she
recently said during
an interview.
Kathleen Finch
Chief Lifestyle Brands Officer
Discovery, Inc.
As the manager of one of the largest portfolios of cable channels
in the U.S., Finch has her hands full. But she also heads the
company's Digital Lifestyle Studios Group, which produces video
and social content for digital properties like the Food Network
Kitchen subscription service. Those responsibilities positioned
her well for supporting the launch of the discovery+ streaming
service. Her empathy, compassion, creativity and sense of
humor helped her guide her team to developing more than 500
new episodes during the pandemic. Her optimistic approach
extends to re-entering the workforce after an extended break.
" Come in guns blazing and show the hiring manager your
enthusiasm at rejoining the workforce. Turn that back-to-work
energy into your competitive advantage, " she says.
Jessica Fischer
CFO
Charter Communications
In less than five years, Fischer has made her way into Charter's
elite C-Suite. She's been leaving her mark on the operator since
before she even joined its ranks, advising it on its purchases of
Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks back in 2015.
Her purview continues to grow, and she's added leading investor
relations, internal audit procurement and more to her task list
in the last year alone. She believes anyone looking to step back
into a 9-5 after a hiatus should talk to an interviewer about the
same things they would if they
left the workforce recently:
skills, their value drivers
and a willingness to
learn. " There are all
kinds of really good
reasons to take
breaks from the
workforce, but
you shouldn't
need to
explain them, "
she says.
Nina L. Diaz
Jessica Fischer
7
Cablefax The Magazine - December 2021

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