The Top 100 People Of Color In Media: Part 6: 50-41
From creators to executives, from technicians to producers, the world of media and entertainment offers thousands of professions that cross and merge, giving the people that work in it the opportunity to fully discover how creative potential and business acumen often overlap. It is fascinating to study the careers of some of these people, thus understanding which opportunities they were able to seize and when did “the right moment” happen. This is why A Hot Set has compiled a list of “The Top 100 People of Color In Media”, a weekly series that for ten Mondays will explore a hundred of the most influential POCs in the entertainment industry. Below are numbers from 50 to 41, and you can find the previous article here. Stay tuned for next Monday’s list!
Lemuel Plummer - Arnold Turner / Stringer
50. Lemuel Plummer: Lemuel Plummer is an entrepreneur who is also the founder and CEO of a clothing brand, a record label, and a production firm, among others. He is a producer and editor who has worked on films such as Tokyo Toni's Finding Love ASAP! (2019), Preachers of LA (2013), and The Conversation (2020). Plummer has previously worked for major media outlets such as ABC, Paramount, and BET. Plummer is also a philanthropist who contributes to several philanthropic organizations, notably the Lemuel Plummer Foundation, which provides financial aid to underprivileged kids.
Zeus Network is a video streaming service that debuted on July 13, 2018. CEO and current President Plummer co-founded the company with social media icons DeStorm Power, Amanda Cerny, and King Bach. Original scripted and unscripted influencer-driven programming is available on the service. Based in Burbank, California, Zeus Network's combined cast of Influencers and content creators reaches a global audience of over 100 million people and is accessible via the ZEUS app and website across a variety of digital platforms and devices. Exclusive, multi-episodic ZEUS Original Series can only be obtained on the ZEUS website or its streaming platform.
Mara Brock Akil - Craig Barritt / Stringer
49. Mara Brock Akil: With a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, Mara Brock Akil began her career as a writer-producer hyphenate by working on Fox’s South Central. She later got her first “Producer” title on the show Moesha, for which she also won an award in 1999. A year later, she created her first show of many to come: Girlfriends, a 30-minute sitcom that aired on UPN for a total of 8 seasons and 172 episodes. After the show’s success, she went on to become a well-established TV executive producer and created successful and popular shows such as The Game and Being Mary Jane, both streamed by BET (The Game was picked up by the network after being canceled on CW).
Brock Akil received numerous accolades for her writing, among which two wins at the NAACP Awards, another two at the Black Reel Awards, as well as winning at the BET Comedy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for Girlfriends in 2005. In particular, the impact of Girlfriends goes beyond its writing: it was one of the rare instances in which Black women were represented on the screen in the early 2000s, especially in leading and non-stereotypical roles. In 2020, she founded the production and distribution company story27 productions while also signing a multi-year deal with Netflix. story27’s main goal is to provide genuine and unfiltered storytelling, as its mission is to be “dedicated to centering the marginalized and their humanity in every story”.
LeBron James and Maverick Carter - Ike Edeani
48. LeBron James & Maverick Carter (Co-Founders): The NBA legend LeBron James and sports businessman Maverick Carter joined forces in 2020 and founded The SpringHill Company, an entertainment development and production company that is the result of the combination of three companies that were already built by the duo: UNINTERRUPTED, Springhill Entertainment, and The Robot Company. UNINTERRUPTED is a 2015 athlete empowerment company, founded with the goal of giving athletes a space to express themselves without intermediaries and third-party publicity obstruction. SpringHill Entertainment, founded in 2007, is a production company, and The Robot Company offers consultancy to growing brands. All three companies are still operative under the umbrella of The SpringHill Company.
The SpringHill Company’s mission is to “empower greatness in every individual, from creators to consumers.” Its main operation is to create and cultivate brands, while its Studio division produces movies and documentaries centered around sports and African American events, such as Hustle (2022) and Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street (2021). The SpringHill Company also has a products segment with merchandise provided by UNINTERRUPTED, as well as a consultancy branch for brand growth and empowerment through The Robot Company.
Ryan Glover - Instagram
47. Ryan Glover: Ryan Glover is an entrepreneur and avid fan of the entertainment industry. Instead of performing, Glover focused on the industry’s business perspective. Glover began to build his resume in Washington, D.C. at Howard University. For Glover, Howard was more than just a place to learn, it was also where he learned from other cultures and people from all over the world and jumpstarted the relationships that helped him to remain successful across multiple industries. Glover is the founder of Bounce TV and is one of the founding members of Greenwood Bank alongside Andrew Young and Michael Render, also known to the world as Killer Mike. In every interview he’s been on, Glover has emphasized the necessity of calibration because it allows a business to continue to grow. While Glover may shift between industries like banking and entertainment, he stated, “My strategies in the way that I operate as a businessman remains consistent.”
Detavio Samuels - Joi Stokes
46. Detavio Samuels: As CEO of REVOLT, the digital cable television network founded by Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2013 , Detavio Samuels is one of the youngest senior executives in the media and entertainment industry. With a BA in Political Science and African American Studies from Duke University, as well as both a BA and an MBA from Stanford, Samuels’ impressive academic career led him to begin a career in marketing. He rose to become the President of GlobalHue, One Solution, and Interactive One, all while founding The Bare Group in 2011, his own holding company, under which there are a consulting company (Bare Thinking), a publishing house (Bare Publishing), and a film studio (Bare Studios). Samuels is also a Member of the Board of Directors of The Brotherhood Sister Sol, an educational platform that offers training on social justice, especially for Black and Latinx people.
Samuels started working at REVOLT as COO in 2020 and became CEO less than a year later. He manages a “growing bi-coastal team” whose objective is to affirm REVOLT’s position in global culture, and is always available on digital, TV, and on demand. Samuels focuses on attracting a young Millennial and Generation Z audience by “using Hip-Hop as a lens to explore the Black experience globally”.
Bing Chen - Frazer Harrsion
45. Bing Chen: Bing Chen is the Executive Chairman and Founder of AU Holdings, a holding company that focuses on socially impactful investments and incubating companies that can “rebalance socioeconomic equity”. After earning a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, Chen first became Product Marketing Manager for Google and then YouTube’s Global Head of Creator Development and Management. He founded AU Holdings in 2014, and the company is now divided into three segments: Strategize & Advise, the strategic advisory branch that offers its services to companies of the caliber of Google and McKinsey, Incubate & Invest in Creators, and finally Incubate & Invest in Communities.
Jaeson Ma - Frazer Harrsion
44. Jaeson Ma: Jaeson Ma is a media executive, entrepreneur, and artist from the United States. He is the founder of East West Enterprises, a brand strategy and investment agency, a co-founder of 88rising, a co-founder of Stampede Ventures, and the chairman and co-founder of EST Media Holdings and its subsidiary enterprises. He also belongs to the Milken Institute's Young Leaders Circle (YLC). Ma was named to the Variety 500 for his efforts as a strategic counselor and financier. Ma has raised capital and counseled on transactions totaling more than $1 billion during his career. TikTok (when it was Musical.ly), Dark Horse Comics, Oursong, XiaoPeng, Mint Songs, Kind Heaven, and other companies are among his other investments.
Ma established East West Ventures (EWV, formerly known as East-West Artists) in 2012. EWV's aim was to incubate and invest in numerous prospects in industries such as media, entertainment, technology, and consumer products. Ma co-founded 88rising in 2015, a multi-platform digital media company that produces Asia-related digital content for the Asian millennial and Generation Z markets. The company rose to prominence as a digital music platform and label specializing in Asian musicians. Stampede Ventures, a 2017 independent media business, has secured a first-look deal with CBS Studios International for 2020. Ma co-founded EST Media Holdings in 2020 with co-founder Eric Tu, a Vice Media and Anonymous Content executive. EST Media's subsidiaries include Eastern Standard Times, EST Studios, and OP3N. In 2021, Ma will develop the web3 social media platform OP3N, an NFT-based software for community creation. The platform enables producers and followers to connect/create/build by utilizing many chains and wallets.
Chantal Nong - Tommy Garcia
43. Chantal Nong: Chantal Nong is the current Senior Vice President, of Feature Development and Production, at Warner Bros. Pictures, where she oversees the creative development and production of DC-based feature films within DC Studios. Her DC films at Warner Bros. include Wonder Woman 1984, The Suicide Squad, and The Batman. She previously supervised other Warner Bros. Pictures releases, including Crazy Rich Asians, The Meg, The Intern, and 300: Rise of an Empire. Before moving to Warner Bros., Chantal was a Vice President of Development at Légende Films, worked at the William Morris Agency, Vice President of Consumer Marketing at Fullscreen Media, Head of Social at Hulu, and Head of Social at Dollar Shave Club. Katie is still actively involved in startups, serving both as an advisor and founder to a handful of companies, and has been recognized for her work in both creative storytelling and digital products.
Vernon Sanders - Manny Carabel
42. Vernon Sanders: In June 2018, Vernon Sanders was named Co-Head of Television at Amazon Studios. Sanders, along with Albert Cheng, manages all scripted and unscripted original programming, including the Emmy Award-winning comedies Fleabag and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, as well as smash dramas like Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, starring John Krasinski, and the irreverent superhero series The Boys. Sanders formerly worked for NBC as Executive Vice President, Current Programming, where he oversaw approximately 25 shows every year, including This Is Us, The Good Place, and Superstore. Sanders also served as Senior Vice President, Drama Programming for NBC and Universal Television, as well as Senior Vice President, Comedy Series for Universal Media Studios, where he was in charge of the studio's comedy programming efforts, including the Emmy Award-winning series 30 Rock and The Office. Sanders also oversaw the studio's Director in Training program for the first year.
Albert Cheng - Charley Gallay / Stringer
41. Albert Cheng: As the Vice President of Prime Video US, Albert Cheng is responsible for the growth and revenues of one of the leading streaming platforms in the industry. He joined Amazon Studios as COO in 2015, and, in that role, Cheng led the strategy behind producing original content, as well as scaling production on a global level. In his new position, Cheng is the single leader managing the Prime Video business in the United States, which entails that his focus has shifted from production to distribution: to name a few, he manages brand strategy, customer acquisition and retention, brand strategy, marketing operations, and consumer insights.
Albert Cheng’s expertise comes from his impressive career in the media and entertainment industry. With a BS from MIT and an MBA from Harvard, Cheng’s career in the entertainment industry began after a few years working as a consultant at BCG, once he started working for Fox Cable Networks in 1999 as Director of Distribution Strategy. In 2000 he joined Disney as VP of Distribution for ABC Cable Networks Group and stayed with the company for almost fifteen years. Cheng is also a member of the Board of Directors of A+E Networks and Broadcast Music, Inc.