As Corporate America begins to see meaningful economic recovery amidst the chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a return to “business as usual” for boards of directors means doubling down on the work they signed up to do: holding executives accountable to ensure they are making decisions that drive shareholder value. Yet in addition to ensuring sound financial planning in an increasingly unpredictable world, the events of the past year amplified the importance of committing to diversity, environmental goals and human capital resources.
During a recent episode of “The View From the Top,” co-hosted by Equilar and Borden Media Consulting, Steven Borden, Founder and President of Borden Media Consulting, sat down with Debra L. Lee, Chairman and CEO emeritus of BET Networks and Chair of the Leading Women Defined Foundation. Lee is currently on four public boards: AT&T, P&G, Burberry and Marriott, in addition to the Cedars-Sinai Hospital board in Los Angeles. She also served in the Obama administration as a member of the White House Management Advisory Board.
Lee’s conversation with Borden covered a panoply of topics, from the history of corporate diversity to how companies can appropriately address hot-button political and social causes, as well as the rise of technology during the pandemic and the trajectory of the entertainment industry in the heyday of streaming services. This segment has compiled highlights from this wide-ranging interview and condensed the hour-plus conversation for the purposes of this publication. The full discussion is available to be viewed here.
Steven Borden (SB): Let’s get started with the role model that you present for women and people of color as a pioneering female and also a Black executive. When were you on your first board, starting in what year?
Debra L. Lee: 1999. Kodak was my first corporate board.
SB: Not a lot of women and not a lot of people of color on boards in 1999.
Lee: Exactly. It’s been an amazing career. I really thank you for saying those very nice things, but a lot of time you just have your head down working. That’s what happened to me at BET. I started as General Counsel, and then rose through the ranks to COO and eventually CEO. I had my eye on growing the company and what my vision was. I didn’t have time to think about being the only one.
SB: What advice do you have for women and people of color who are in or coming into industry in terms of navigating to positions of authority effectively in complex organizations?
Lee: What I usually tell young people of color and women is, “Find something you’re passionate about.” First of all, we all work too hard. You don’t want there to be a dividing line between your career and the rest of your life. I know I felt that way. I started off at a law firm for five and a half years. I really felt, when I went to work, I left my values and my personality outside the door. That never happened when I arrived at BET. Either it’s the company you care about, the cause or the industry, but find something that you’re passionate about.
Then I would say, “Work hard,” because the first thing you want to do is develop your reputation as being excellent. In the early years, that takes a lot of hard work to distinguish yourself. As you move up the ladder, try to find people who support you, either at the company or outside the company, who can offer you advice.
SB: They talk about people having rabbis in the industry. If you’re one of the executives or just starting out, develop relationships and feel comfortable asking for help. It’s not a weakness, it’s actually a power.
Lee: Right. It’s very important because you want someone who respects you and talks about you when you’re not in the room and will testify to what a good job you’re doing.
SB: Let’s talk about access and ascension in the context of diversity on boards, and advice you have from your personal experience being a pioneer breaking into the club.
Lee: Board service has been a private club for too long. It’s been a well-kept secret, and it’s something that white males took advantage of for years. Then Sarbanes-Oxley came along, and CEOs were forced to find independent board members and start diversifying their boards so they could no longer put their golf buddies who would approve their salary package without question on their board. My former CEO was offered the Kodak position, and he had too many boards, so he suggested me. At the time, I was COO, which “was close enough” to being CEO that they put me on the board.
The first thing I do when I get on boards, if I’m the only one, is try to get more people who look like me on boards so I don’t feel the burden of the whole race or my whole gender all the time. Every time they talk about race or gender, they look at me. That’s not a fun position to be in.
I just started a company called The Monarchs Collective with my partner, Rabia de Lande Long, to help companies find those diverse board candidates they say they can’t find, and also to train companies how to welcome a diverse board member and train candidates if they need it. If you don’t know or you’ve never been on a for-profit board, you don’t know what to expect, and there’s nothing worse than walking into a wood-paneled room with high-back leather chairs and being intimidated. We want to ease that process.
Board service has been a private club for too long.
SB: Truly. Can you share with us a little bit what the experience was like when you were the first Black woman, or only Black woman in the room, and how the dialogues have evolved over time and where they are now?
Lee: It can be intimidating sometimes if you’ve never been in those rooms. You don’t know ahead of time that you spend the night or have to ride up on the corporate plane with other board members, or share your meals with them, or have your spouses come to retreats. It’s a very personal relationship. After you learn how the inner workings of the board go, the committee structure and you understand the financial side of the company, you start being more vocal about issues that you’re concerned about. That can be P&L, that can be marketing, that could be, nowadays, cybersecurity, whatever it is.
If you’re a Black person or a woman, or both, in my case, if issues of racial inequality come up, you feel compelled to speak on those, because you can speak to those issues from a very personal viewpoint. The amazing thing is, years ago, those issues never came up, and all of a sudden now, after George Floyd, those issues come up all the time.
SB: What responsibilities, if any, do companies have when it comes to supporting a drive toward greater social justice?
Lee: I think it depends on what’s going on at the time in our world. I’ve been on the Marriott board for over 20 years. I’ve seen them deal with issues like immigration and LGBTQ issues, which they felt really affected their workforce.
It’s really, first of all, up to the CEO, and you really do need to pick your causes. No one expects companies to speak out on everything, or to be monolithic and have one viewpoint, but [they do expect you to be able to respond] when the issue comes up that’s so important to your business or to your workforce.
I think the board should have input. Nowadays you see some boards creating ESG committees for that very reason. Some already have diversity committees, and they’re putting the ESG work in that committee or a public policy committee, but companies have long taken stands on issues. It’s becoming more timely and more relevant these days.
SB: What kinds of dialogues have been going on in boardrooms in the last year around policing and violence when it comes to people of color?
Lee: I can say, overall, those issues have been talked about a lot more since George Floyd’s murder. That was such an egregious murder that we all saw on camera. Companies have asked themselves, do they want to make a statement on it? Do they want to do something to help, and how do you help? That was a conversation for several months: Do you start an internship program to support young Black students?
The second was police brutality. The Business Roundtable took it upon themselves to make statements and to form committees. That forced boards to say, “Should we be a part of that? What if our CEO is on the police brutality committee? What does that mean for the company?” There were ongoing discussions on that, and then the latest has been the voter suppression legislation that happened in Georgia and is being considered in over 14 other states, whether that was proper and whether it was really a non-partisan issue.
I was part of the group of 72 Black executives who signed on to a letter initially, saying that this was non-partisan, and it was so egregious that we hoped our fellow white corporate executives would take a stand. Several weeks later, 400 companies, foundations and individuals did take a stand and say that that was the wrong way for our country to go.
If you don’t have diversity in the room, there are a lot of things you can miss.
SB: Those were very powerful expressions when you opened up the center of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal.
Lee: Hopefully, it will have an effect, but I have to say there are a lot of people in Corporate America and politics, especially people in politics, who thought maybe that was wrong for corporate executives to take a stand like that.
SB: You had mentioned that one of your professional colleagues was concerned about a potential perception if a person did not sign the letter.
Lee: There was some discussion that CEOs felt pressure to sign it and didn’t want to be labeled a racist by not signing it. I had to reassure individuals that that was not the case. No one was being labeled as a racist, and people should really look deep down inside and figure out how they felt about the issue. I guess some people who didn’t support it rarely felt the pressure and thought it was along political lines, which, in our view, everyone should support as many people being able to vote as possible. That’s the nature of our country. We saw too many people die fighting for the right to vote in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Why should we go backward? I also realize not everyone agrees with me.
SB: Let’s talk a little bit about some of the specifics of really getting traction with DE&I [diversity, equity & inclusion] in the workplace. Does it feel like this is a different moment in time, and if so, why? Practically speaking, what does the industry need to do to make sure that we do get forward motion, and it’s not initiatives and pronouncements only?
Lee: I do think this is a different time. I think it’s a movement, not a moment. You look at the length of time—we’ve been talking about it since last May. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Companies are instituting policies and goals that they intend to meet over the next several years. I think we need to keep the pressure on. People need to talk and understand each other more and engage Black executives and Black board members in these discussions.
SB: Beyond the moral imperative for inclusion and equity, why is it important from a business perspective to have a diverse and inclusive board, C-suite and staff?
Lee: I think we know that it increases the profitability of a company, but it makes sure that companies don’t—I don’t know any other way to say it—make stupid mistakes in terms of representing their brand or their appeal to different groups. If you don’t have diversity in the room, there are a lot of things you can miss. You probably remember a few years ago when the fashion industry made a lot of mistakes in terms of using the Sambo character or other things. If you had a Black person in the room, that wouldn’t happen.
It’s important to have people of color in your C-suite and on your board. It also is important for us to be concerned about creating Black wealth. Until we create wealth in the Black community, we’ll continue to have these problems. If you don’t have people around your table that you’re sharing the wealth with, people of color, women, you’re not changing America, you’re not having an impact. CEOs and division heads should look at it from that perspective.
SB: In terms of really operationalizing diversity initiatives, what works and what doesn’t work? I know it’s a broad area, but I’m trying to get as practical as possible for all of us who continue to discuss this with each other to understand, if we do this, it will move it forward.
Lee: I think what moves it forward is ensuring that you have people in the room, whatever room you’re in. If you look around and it’s all white males, you have a problem. It’s incumbent to get people of color and women on boards. A new area that companies are focusing on is LGBTQ. Having people who you can depend on to tell you the truth and give you diverse opinions [is critical].
It doesn’t help if you’re in the room and you don’t stand up for what you believe or tell a CEO when he or she is wrong. Some companies don’t like that; they want a rubber-stamp board. If you’re in the room, you have to take the leap and stand up for your values and for the values of different communities.
SB: I guess the catch-22 is you need the people in the room to move it forward, but how do you get the people in the room?
Lee: Well, you have to be intentional about it. You have to say, “The next board member I add is going to be a person of color or indigenous or a woman,” and make sure that you stick to that. Don’t use the excuse that you couldn’t find someone. I had a search firm tell me years ago they couldn’t find any Black male CEOs. Well, first of all, there are tons of Black male CEOs, maybe not tons, but I know quite a few myself.
Second of all, it doesn’t have to be a CEO to add to your board. It can be someone who’s an expert in cybersecurity. Someone who’s an expert in marketing. Boards have opened the filters for white people, and they should open those filters for people of color also. Let’s add not only a diverse person but someone who brings expertise that the board is looking for.
SB: Since our last “View From the Top” with Mark Cuban in October, we have vaccines, and we’re stepping back toward some normalcy, whatever that’s going to mean going forward. Can you talk a little bit about the conversations [about COVID] that the board’s been involved in at this juncture?
Lee: The first concern of all the companies that I deal with was the safety of employees and executives and customers. The shutting-down process took so much time and was so unexpected and hurt so many of the businesses for so long. Now there’s a ray of hope, things are opening up, and people, as you said, are getting vaccinated.
The first question is, how do you bring people back to work safely? That may take redesign of office spaces, that might take allowing some people to continue to work from home, and there’s a lot of discussion on how that’s going to work.
The second part is how do you get back to profitability? The amazing thing is the number of companies that are coming out of this in better shape because of loans and cost-cutting and other things. But now they are looking forward to getting back to a new normal, how they do that and how it is going to look different.
SB: In terms of the planning and the nuts and bolts in terms of coming back to work and what’s next as we open up, that’s mainly at the executive level and just more strategic conversations at the board level. Can you give me a little insight into how that sorts out?
Lee: On some boards, we’ve had presentations by the administrative executives as to how they think it’s going to work, but mostly it hasn’t gotten that detailed. It’s more from a strategic standpoint: When are we going to do it? What are the big takeaways, and how is it going to be different from the way it used to be? How much is it going to cost us or save us? We don’t want to micromanage anything, but it is a big issue of concern to boards.
From the board perspective, my first boards are talking about coming back together in June, so that’s a good sign, but I don’t think we’ll ever go back to all meetings being in-person. We found that Zoom and WebEx and these other platforms work somewhat, so do we really need to come together eight times a year, or is it just four times a year? Everyone knows the personal connection is important, so you don’t want to do all Zoom, but how will that change? The virus has pushed us into a digital age that some industries were trying to hold back, but now we’re here and there’s no going back.
If you don’t have people around your table that you’re sharing the wealth with, people of color, women, you’re not changing America, you’re not having an impact.
SB: What lessons, if any, do you think some of the big companies have learned from this and taken away?
Lee: I think one of the biggest lessons is there could be something that happens that we never ever anticipated. This virus is something that no one anticipated—unless maybe you worked in this area—and it changed everyone’s life overnight and changed what companies do for a living and how you deal with it.
The other part of that is never taking anything for granted. Never think that your business a year from now is going to be the same as it is now, because you never know when one of these seismic events will happen.
SB: Is the definition for retirement in your dictionary? Because you had said that being on four boards and running your different organizations is your retirement.
Lee: I had no idea what retirement meant, and I thought it was about slowing down, but I found very early on it’s about speeding up and doing your passion project. It’s not what I expected, but I tried to sit on my deck for two weeks and it just didn’t work. I hated it.
View the entire interview here. Learn more about Debra L. Lee’s organizations, Leading Women Defined at www.leadingwomendefined.com, and The Monarchs Collective at www.monarchscollective.com.
With a trailblazing career spanning over three decades, Debra L. Lee is one of the most influential female voices in the entertainment industry. Until May 2018, Ms. Lee served as the Chairman & CEO of BET Networks, the leading provider of entertainment for the African American audience and consumers of Black culture globally. During her tenure, Ms. Lee helmed BET’s reinvigorated approach to incorporate philanthropy and authentic programming. Prior to being named Chairman and CEO, Ms. Lee was President and COO of BET Networks for almost 10 years, during which she guided the company to consistent increases in viewership, revenue and earnings. She first joined BET as Vice President and General Counsel in 1986.
Named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s 100 Most Powerful Women in Entertainment and Billboard’s Power 100, Ms. Lee’s achievements in her 30+ year career in the industry have earned her numerous accolades from across the cable industry, as well as recognition as one of this country’s most respected business executives.