Eric Easter is a producer, author, columnist and speaker who fights for strong public media. The CEO of BLQBOX Digital Studios — a start-up streaming network featuring non-fiction content on the global black cultural experience — and the chairman of NBPC’s board of directors, Mr. Easter is a highly successful creator and producer of multiplatform content with global audience reach. He is a proven leader and innovator in the strategic use of new and emerging digital platforms to create unique business models to drive revenue, build brands, influence audiences and reach new markets. He was most recently chief of digital strategy and VP of Entertainment for Johnson Publishing Company (Ebony Magazine). He also serves on the boards of WHUT, Public Media Platform, the NAACP’s historic CRISIS Magazine and the community advisory panel of AT&T.

Quincy B. Troupe — Senior Vice President, Supply Chain at The Boston Beer Company — is a consumer goods executive with more than fifteen years of supply chain management experience in the consumer food industry. Since 2013, he has served as Vice President, Manufacturing and Supply Chain Strategy, for the Pepperidge Farm division of Campbell Soup Company, Inc., and from 2010-2013 as Vice President, Supply Chain for Campbell North America. Prior to joining Campbell, Mr. Troupe served in various senior operational roles with Mars, Inc. of McLean, Virginia from 1997-2010.

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.

Darryl Ford Williams is the Vice President of Content for WQED Multimedia in Pittsburgh. In her current role at WQED, Ms. Ford Williams oversees the creation, development, production and delivery of all new and existing local, national, international and syndicated television, radio, interactive and educational programming for WQED Multimedia. She led the effort for the PBS series American Masters, August Wilson: The Ground On Which I Stand serving as Executive Producer for this highly acclaimed documentary. Under her leadership, productions have taken WQED documentary teams across the country and abroad to Kenya, Poland, Vietnam and Austria for productions distributed to the PBS system. She also launched an informational television station for the Government of Bermuda.

Prior to her work with WQED, she was the sole proprietor of the Ford-Williams Agency, one of the first companies in the nation to focus on minority recruiting for major market television stations. Throughout her career, Ms. Ford Williams led content and program development for broadcast groups across the country. Her background as a television news producer and news manager is extensive. The following are just a few examples of that work: managing site producer for CBS News in its coverage of September 11—focusing on the Pennsylvania crash site of United Flight 93; coordinating producer for ABC-TV’sGood Morning America; executive producer at WJLA-TV in Washington, DC; news producer at KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh and WBAL in Baltimore.

Ms. Ford Williams’ work has been recognized with many awards, including several Emmy Awards in addition to numerous Emmy nominations. She has been honored by the Easter Seals Society, International Association of Business Communicators, and has won multiple awards from Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters.

With roots in the Midwest, Steve Hissam mixes creativity and strategic agility with solid business acumen to deliver quantifiable results in the ever-changing marketing space.

He began his career on Madison Avenue where he worked on a range of product categories from Mercedes-Benz automobiles to Yoo-Hoo chocolate drink. At Kirshenbaum & Bond he propagated the agency’s distinctive under-the-radar approach to advocacy marketing for clients such as Duckhead apparel and CNBC cable network.

His pioneering social media campaign for Hennessy cognac not only garnered industry awards and praise from The New York Times and Business Week, but also changed the way spirit brands are marketed.

Accepting an offer to work for a client, Steve spent the next phase of his career working in brand management. Leading blue chip companies like Remy Cointreau and LVMH toward creative resolutions across a myriad of business challenges, Steve’s expertise in equity-building initiatives and innovative integrated marketing campaigns have become his hallmark.

Steve established film as an event marketing platform for Grand Marnier, and created strategic partnerships with major and independent film studios and film organizations. Sponsorship of the New York Film Festival achieved exceptional consumer outreach and awareness through a comprehensive public relations program that generated over 100 million impressions.

To fill in knowledge and data gaps in the multicultural space, Steve employed an anthropological approach to insight mining and leveraged his expertise to improve the cultural competency of the organizations.

At Geometry Global, Steve served as a key player in integrating and elevating best-in-class shopper marketing process and practice into the new Mondelez organization and SC Johnson.

Working directly with both brand and field teams, Steve identifies strategic opportunities to reinforce brand equity and drive category growth across multiple classes of trade.

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.

Valerie is a certified Project Management Professional® working currently at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Department of Ophthalmology, where she directs, manages, and coordinates created and curated integrated marketing communications content, strategies, and solutions. In this capacity, Valerie represents the Department of Ophthalmology in Medical Center-wide Communications issues and liaises with other specialties, as needed, on internal and public-facing, traditional and digital communications projects and programs. 

With more than 20 years of experience in marketing communications, Valerie has worked with private clients and for major corporate brands including Volvo, Disney, and Deloitte. She is a blogger, independent educator, and marketing communications consultant for her company, Valorena Online, L.L.C. through which she has authored, illustrated and published the Cocoa Kids Collection©, a three-title series of books, featuring multicultural content and characters. 

A former journalist and daily reporter, Valerie have served as a staff writer, written, and contributed to articles and essays in Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, National Geographic, Orange County Business Journal, and More Magazine, online in the US and in Spain. 

Valerie is currently a doctoral student in Literacy through St. John’s University, New York. She is also a proud mother to Lorena, 23,  and Aunt to Isaiah, 10, namesakes and inspiration for her children’s book titles.

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. 

Ms. Carew-Watts joined the WNET family in 2013 and was appointed General Counsel for WLIW21 in January 2016. Prior to joining WNET, she was an associate in the intellectual property practice group at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.  

She received her B.A. from Yale University in 1991 and her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2009. Prior to law school, she enjoyed a long career in entertainment and arts, working in development for non-profit performance space The Kitchen, and non-profit production company Rainbow Television Workshop, as well as serving on the design teams for numerous television series and features, and theme-parks for Walt Disney Imagineering.  Ms. Carew-Watts is a former Director of the Association of Black Women Attorneys.