DEBRA LEE

FORMER CHAIR & CEO, BET NETWORKS

With a trailblazing career spanning more than three decades, Lee is arguably one of the most influential female voices in the entertainment industry. In fact, she was intimately involved in every major corporate transition from BET’s historic public offering in the early 1990s to its sale to Viacom 20 years ago. Until two years ago, she served as chairman and CEO of BET Networks, the leading platform for consumers of black culture and entertainment through such original programming as Being Mary Jane, The BET Awards, Black Girls Rock!, and BET Honors as well its addition of a channel targeted to black women, BET Her (originally called Centric), among other developments. Today Lee uses her experience and clout to push diversity and inclusion within corporate America through her organization, Leading Women Defined. “I really think women manage differently,” she says in the book Take a Lesson, by Caroline Clarke. “I had to learn how to be direct and forceful and not leave wiggle room.”

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