On one side: talented, eager people.
On the other side: cable industry companies devoted to diversity of individuals and ideas.
At the intersection: the Walter Kaitz Foundation, which serves as a catalyst for partnerships between the industry and organizations serving women and people of color.
Below are some of the partnerships that illustrate the Foundation’s role in advancing diversity with creativity and impact.
Howard University School of Business Executive Leadership Honors Program
Working with Howard University’s School of Business, the Foundation has forged alliances with a select group of sponsoring companies whose representatives provide mentoring, instruction and leadership development training for some of the best and brightest business students at the Washington, D.C. University.
Corporate sponsors enjoy a year-long presence on campus that enhances their recruitment efforts as they identify and work with top business students who study industry issues. Honors students, in turn, gain invaluable instruction and insight through case-study competitions, access to corporate mentors, participation in bi-monthly seminars, plus training in personal business and social skills.
The Hollywood Creative Forum
In keeping with the Foundation’s mission to promote and advocate for diversity in the cable industry, we are featuring for the third consecutive year – the Hollywood Creative Forum. This unique event enables programming executives along with production companies to “Meet and Greet” experienced, diverse, mid-level to upper level creatives (show runner, writers, directors and producers) to consider for non-fiction/reality project assignments, and if desired, brought in for pitch meetings at a later date.
The 2011 event was held in Los Angeles at The Beverly Hills Country Club and featured over 80 credentialed creatives, senior programming executives and representatives from some of the leading production companies in the television today. The event opened with a continental breakfast, followed by a keynote address by acclaimed producer, Marvin Acuna, Co-creator/Executive Producer of Bravo’s, Platinum Hit followed by a formal credential “Meet & Greet.” The event closed with a luncheon featuring an industry panel comprised of senior programming executives.
There is no fee to participate in the program. However to take part in this unique opportunity to meet diverse professionals in the fiction/reality space, we are mining for programming executives, their affiliates and production companies to participate in the event. To make the event successful, we are asking potential participants to provide a “mandate” of the types of show runners, writers, directors and/or producers they are interested in meeting based on genre and experience – all in the hopes of pairing up the right matches at the “Meet & Greet.”
Participants are pre-selected and vetted to ensure that they meet the mandates provided by programming executives. Participants will not be permitted to pitch, unless otherwise indicated to us that pitching is acceptable on-site. Participants will also be asked to sign a formal release which we will provide to programming executives and production companies prior to the start of the program.
To enable programming executives and production companies to see as many people as possible that meet the requested mandate, the format will follow a “speed networking” template used by various guilds and professional industry organizations, with the meetings held in 10 – 15 minute intervals.
