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Black Public Media supports the development of visionary content creators and distributes
stories about the global Black experience to inspire a more equitable and inclusive future.
We are thankful for the many donors and friends who support Black Public Media’s mission to present
purposeful media and nurture Black storytellers to reach further heights.
Henry Hampton’s six-episode documentary, “Eyes on the Prize,” is broadcast nationwide on PBS over the course of several weeks. The series earns Blackside Productions several prestigious honors including Emmy, Peabody, and IDA awards.
PROGRAM COORDINATOR
She’s also worked on Freedom Riders, which won three Primetime Emmy awards and premiered on PBS’ American Experience series; on Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise, a one-hour PBS documentary; and on A Place of Our Own, which aired nationally on PBS’ Independent Lens series. Carol sits on the board of the Peekskill Arts Alliance and is an Organizer/Programmer of the annual Peekskill Film Festival. She also is a former Black Public Media artist-in-residence and a Firelight Media Documentary Lab fellow.
Diane Carr-Joseph serves as the Business Manager for National Black Programming Consortium. She is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the organization including human resources, financial forecasting, resource allocation, fund management, accounting and control. Diane holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Accounting from Baruch College New York.
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Denise A. Greene is the Director of Programs at Black Public Media (BPM) overseeing the organization’s key funding (Open Call, PitchBLACK), professional development (360 Incubator+) and distribution initiatives (Be Heard, AfroPop and AfroPop Digital Shorts) for traditional media projects. As the Director, Denise directs the creative vision for BPM’s long standing multi-episode broadcast series, AfroPop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange as well as the newest productions, Be Heard and AfroPop Digital Shorts. Denise comes to BPM with experience as an independent filmmaker working in children’s programming (Sesame Street) and documentaries for which she received Emmy (Malcolm X: Make It Plain) and Peabody (I’ll Make Me A World) awards. Denise’s earlier work also includes various positions in the industry including her work with Orlando Bagwell during the launch of the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms unit. With this foundation, Denise embraces the BPM mission to uplift Black storytellers and Black stories in all its rich diversity.
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS
Within her recent tenure, Denise has helped to broaden the types of stories and creative approaches under the BPM banner with children’s projects, podcasts, narrative shorts and experimental documentaries while continuing to build on the impressive catalog of historical documentaries. Also, with BPM’s tradition of presenting critical issues through a Black lens, Denise steers the Programs division in seeking out and supporting daring stories on timely issues such as environmental justice, mental health, reparations, gender affirmation and more. Before her current position, Denise served as BPM’s Director of the New Media Institute, a groundbreaking professional development program training mid-career filmmakers in the latest digital technologies bringing attention to Black trailblazers in the emerging media space. In addition, she played an instrumental role in producing BPM’s inaugural Story Summit, a national convening which produced The Black Paper on the state of the industry distributed to key stakeholders in the field. Denise is a proud member of New York Women in Film & Television and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. When she’s not watching films or listening to podcasts, Denise is in a hot yoga room or a refreshing lap pool.
Eboni Johnson-Kaba comes to BPM having served as director of education and outreach for the Denton Black Film Festival, where she helped launch the DBFF Institute, which offers interactive workshops, seminars and other educational programs. In that position, she worked closely with BPM staff to co-produce our Technically Brilliant Show, a DBFF and BPM collaboration.
ENGAGEMENT MANAGER
Contracts & Grants Specialist
DIRECTOR OF EMERGING MEDIA
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
SPECIAL PROGRAMS MANAGER
Cheryl’s storytelling career began as a journalist. Her work covering business and education has appeared in publications including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Business Journal, the LA Weekly, and Diverse Issues in Higher Education. After years serving as Diverse’s executive editor, she left the newsroom to join the Washington, D.C.-based Langhum Mitchell Communications. Cheryl is the founding producer and former co-anchor of WOLB’s award-winning Lunch with Labor talk show and podcast in Baltimore. In her current role, as director of marketing, communications and engagement at Black Public Media, she spearheads efforts to broaden the organization’s influence and visibility on the public media landscape. A Bryn Mawr College graduate, Cheryl also holds a master’s in print journalism from the University of Southern California, and is a former media management fellow of the Poynter Institute of Media Studies.
Marketing & Communications Director
Kelli Blake came aboard as our fund development and corporate sponsorship manager in April. Her extensive experience as a creative executive in corporate partnership accounts and activation will help elevate BPM’s corporate investment portfolio.
Fund Development & Corporate Sponsorship Manager
Tonya Thomas, as Deputy Director of Black Public Media (BPM), helps to drive organizational strategy and oversee internal operations. Her work includes launching strategic initiatives and partnerships and supporting the creative and financial health of the organization while championing authentic representations of the global Black experience. Before BPM, Tonya, as founder and CEO of JoLa Films, Inc., launched and ran a work readiness program for youth and young adults.
Her earlier roles include National Director of Programs at the Tourette Association of America and program officer at the New York Community Trust – Long Island Office, where she advocated for community organizations and engaged in competitive grantmaking. At SUNY College at Old Westbury, Tonya helped develop and market the award-winning First-Year Community Engagement Program.
In her early career, she worked on several major TV shows, including Entertainment Tonight, The Montel Williams Show, and others, and later served as Marketing Research Manager at Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, overseeing film marketing research for national releases.
Tonya is a graduate of Boston University (BS) and Fordham University (MSW). She enjoys reading, watching movies, volunteering, and working with youth. She is a member of the Long Island Chapter, The Links, Inc., an Associate member of Jack and Jill Nassau County Chapter, and serves on the board of the Rockville Center Education Foundation. Tonya lives on Long Island with her husband and two daughters.
Deputy Director
After over twelve years of investment experience, Guy-Max Delphin opened Delphin Investments. Currently, he is the Senior Portfolio Manager heading Fundamental Research and Macro/Top-Down overlay. Mr. Delphin’s extensive experience includes the Yale-New Haven Health System as a leading Investment Strategist, Senior Analyst at Fortis Investments, and Senior Associate of Equity Research in the Small-Cap Industrials group, a division of Jefferies & Company, Inc. Mr. Delphin also held an Associate Analyst position within the Prudential Equity Group, LLC. Early in his career, Guy-Max functioned as a quantitative analyst in the Investment Product Design and Risk Management Group divisions of OppenheimerFunds, Inc. In 2012, he joined the NYC Special Education Collaborative, an organization working with charter schools advocating sustainable, high-quality special education programs. Mr. Delphin is on the Stony Brook Foundation Board of Trustees and serves as Chair of the College of Business Advisory Board. His philanthropic activities focus on education and healthcare. Mr. Delphin received a M.S. in Financial Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of NYU, in addition to B.S. degrees in both Applied Mathematics and Economics from Stony Brook University.
TREASURER
Deniese Davis got her start in entertainment by producing indie low-budget projects including music videos, short films and digital content. In the web-series realm she is best known for producing Issa Rae’s award-winning web series “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl”. She is currently a Producer on the HBO comedy series INSECURE and an Executive Producer on the upcoming HBO limited series THE DOLLS while continuing to produce and oversee content for Issa Rae Productions. She also serves as COO of ColorCreative, which provides access and opportunities for diverse and emerging writers and recently sold their first feature film LOVE IN AMERICA to Universal. Originally from Las Vegas NV, Deniese is an alum of CUNY-Brooklyn College and the American Film Institute Conservatory.
CHAIR
Valerie is a certified project management professional with a long career in the overlapping fields of communications, journalism and literacy. In addition to authoring three children’s books and being doctoral candidate (literacy), she has more than 20 years’ experience in marketing and communications, and has worked with private clients and for major corporate brands including Volvo, Disney and Deloitte.
Antonia Carew-Watts is General Counsel for WLIW21 and a senior attorney for WNET. WNET is America’s flagship PBS station, which operates New York’s channel THIRTEEN, Long Island’s WLIW21, and New Jersey’s NJTV. Ms. Carew-Watts advises WLIW21 on issues relating to production, intellectual property and new media, underwriting, and labor and employment, among other matters. In addition, she is counsel for THIRTEEN’s long-running award-winning biography series, American Masters.
VICE CHAIR
As the Opportunity Agenda’s senior coordinator for capacity building, Eva-Marie develops a comprehensive and strategically sequenced set of tools and resources to promote organization’s internal and external capacity building. Utilizing skills and expertise in organizational development, strategic communications, and technology, Eva-Marie creates innovative training programs.
Samantha is a transformational leader with more than 20 years serving in private and nonprofit sector roles leading dynamic growth teams. She’s a skilled relationship architect in strategic corporate partnerships and engagement board development and management with an exercised level of comfort engaging with high level domestic and international stakeholders. She is known to be an agile strategist with deep knowledge and experience in co-designing and executing strategic plans with data driven outcomes.
Samantha is the founder & CEO of Color Lens Consulting, a boutique consultancy firm focusing on creating business connections beyond borders through government advisory. She is known as a global ecosystem leader equipping and advising entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey. As founder and CEO of her family company, they have built Caribbean restaurants in the Maryland/DC area and have a vision to expand.
SECRETARY
Samantha has served on numerous boards and commissions. She is an appointee to the National Women’s Business Council by The Honorable Isabella Guzman, Administrator of The U.S. Small Business Administration. She is on the advisory board for the University of Guyana Foundation, an advisor for the Guyana Economic Development Trust and several early-stage impact companies. In addition, she sits on the board of directors for Black Public Media and is a founding board member of the Social Justice School. Samantha holds a bachelor of science degree from Bowie State University.
Allison Simmons is an award-winning television executive with more than thirty years of experience in the industry. Currently, she is Senior Director of Programming, Production and Development for TV ONE, where she oversees the network’s signature crime series (Fatal Attraction, Sins of the City and ATL Homicide). Previously, she was the Head of Development for startup TV company OZY Media. Allison spent three years as VP of Development for Releve Entertainment, a minority owned-production company known for its music and faith-based content including the Preachers of LA franchise and The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel movie for Lifetime. Allison’s always had a passion for telling stories about people of color. Over the years, she has developed shows for Amazon, Own and Lifetime including Black=Beauty Executive-Produced by Queen Latifah.
Janis Smith-Gomez is an experienced commercial leader of Fortune 50 companies and iconic brands, positioning global enterprises for competitive advantage and market leadership. Over 30 years, Janis leveraged key areas of expertise to succeed as an accomplished innovator, talent champion and value creator at Johnson & Johnson, Mars, Kraft and PepsiCo. She is a visionary marketing strategist and people leader driving transformation at the intersection of company purpose, go-to-market strategy and culture to deliver positive outcomes as well as accelerate sales and share growth. She is a passionate storyteller and uses her ethical leadership and DEI&A advocacy to develop meaningful narratives and curate content to strengthen brand reputation, inspire and empower others and increase engagement for all stakeholders in a digital-first and ESG-principled world.
Jon C. Walls is a senior finance executive possessing over 30 years of experience with Fortune 500 companies and small to mid-sized businesses. Jon began his career at Lehman Brothers where he served as a Senior Vice President of Investment Banking until 2000 with an industry specialization in Financial Institutions. While at Lehman, he developed his deep expertise in delivering complex M&A, equity and fixed income solutions to sophisticated clients. Over a span of eight years he successfully executed more than 30 transactions totaling over $16 billion in mergers and acquisitions and over $5 billion in debt and equity financings.
Jon’s most recent experiences includes his roles as CFO of an early stage investor backed B2B healthcare finance and analytics company, Managing Director at a boutique investment banking firm and co-Director of an Los Angeles based Entrepreneurship Center. Prior to that, he spent over 8 years leading a professional staff as President of an insurance brokerage he acquired with private equity and property management partners. In addition, for more than ten years, Jon was the instructor of S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Fundamentals of Bank Valuation, a seminar he designed which was offered throughout the country. Jon has also held senior leadership roles at a mortgage bank and a technology start-up.
Jon holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a JD from Harvard Law School (Cum Laude) and a BA from Yale University.
Travis Mitchell serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Content Officer at Maryland Public Television. He oversees all content created, acquired, and aired on the statewide public television network’s TV channels and online properties. Having amassed more than three decades of experience as an executive in commercial and public media, Mitchell earned an undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism from Morgan State University and a master’s degree in entrepreneurship and education from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education in Philadelphia. He completed further executive education study at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. has served on the foundation board of Morgan State University and as a member of PBS Children’s Media and Education Working Group, the PBS/CPB Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group and the National Cable Television Association Policy Issues Committee. Most recently Mitchell became the Chair of the Board of Visitors for Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communications. In 2021, Mr. Mitchell was appointed to the Board of Trustees at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he also received an honorary doctor of humane letters from the university in recognition of his more than 25 years of service to the community as a media and non-profit executive.
