5 Black Women Power Players Changing the Face of Hollywood

In celebration of Women’s History Month 2024, HelloBeautiful and MadameNoire have launched a new “Women to Know” cover and roundtable. For the first time, these organizations will host an in-person dinner honoring five Black Hollywood Women power players: Head of Orion Pictures Alana Mayo, President of Disney’s Onyx Collective Tara Duncan, President of TriStar Pictures Nicole Brown, Senior Film Executive, Development, Production, & Acquisition for Amazon MGM Studios Amber Rasberry, and Netflix’s Vice President of Film Niija Kuykendall. Read the cover story here.

HelloBeautiful and MadameNoire’s annual “Women to Know” campaign features video interviews and a group cover of trailblazing women every March. Last year the brands featured Women to Know: Tech Titans. This year, under the leadership of iOne Digital Senior Vice President of Content, Allison McGevna-Cirino, the team decided to feature five visionary Hollywood executives. In the new roundtable video, the leaders detail their journeys as Black Women in Hollywood. They also share the impact their positions will have on future generations.

“The iOne team is thrilled to be able to use our platform to highlight the incredible accomplishments of these esteemed Black women,” said McGevna-Cirino. “In a time when our stories are consistently undervalued, the work these powerhouse women do is more important than ever.”

McGevna-Cirino is a multimedia storyteller and media executive with experience in digital, broadcast, and print media and film and television production. Director of Sponsor and Affiliate Content, Cliché Wynter-Mayo, has an unflinching dedication to storytelling that has helped build the iOne Digital sponsorship team from the ground up. Editorial Director of Style & Beauty for HelloBeautiful, Shamika Sanders, is a digital influencer with a penchant for entertainment news and pop culture. The team collaborated with Oracle Media, a Black-female-owned-and-operated production company, led by Jordan Benston, to create and execute this annual Women’s History Month campaign.

(L-R) Nicole Brown – President of TriStar Pictures and Amber Rasberry – Senior Executive Film Development, Production & Acquisition of Amazon MGM Studios

As for the Hollywood Executives, Brown is the first Black Woman to run a live-action label at a major studio. She has also worked on several major projects including “The Woman King.” Amber Rasberry is an award-winning motion picture TV executive with an extensive background in the entertainment industry. She has been an executive producer for films like “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” “Precious” and “Candy Cane Lane.” Here is what Rasberry had to say on the topic of diversity in Hollywood.

“But you see the box-office success,” said Rasberry. “You see the streaming success when you have diversity, and when you have it in front and behind the camera when you have it with executives, and it’s not just looking at diversity and inclusion as a temporary measure, but really, really engrained in the fabric of a company and the business model, not just a fix-it for now.”

Amber Rasberry – Senior Executive Film Development, Production & Acquisition of Amazon MGM Studios

HelloBeautiful and MadameNoire are Black-owned digital content properties owned by iOne Digital under the umbrella of Urban One. Thanks to fearless women leaders like McGevna-Cirino, Wynter-Mayo, and Sanders, HelloBeautiful and MadameNoire have become nationally recognized, Black-owned media brands led by women, that continue to tell stories in and about the Black community and create content representative of the community and culture.

About HelloBeautiful

REAL WOMEN = REAL BEAUTY. We take the superficiality out of beauty by providing a space for Black women to explore the subject from the inside out. We share trends, stories, and advice that are honest, optimistic, and most importantly real. Our goal is to change the beauty world for Black women, and not the other way around. HelloBeautiful.com is where Black women go to talk about themselves shamelessly. We share, confess, indulge, encourage, and celebrate each other — while indulging our guilty pleasures.

HelloBeautiful embraces the diversity of today’s woman and allows her to be perfectly flawed and fabulous. At HelloBeautiful we believe that women are diverse and dynamic. We know that the woman who works tirelessly for women’s rights and the woman who’s rocking the latest trends are not mutually exclusive. We believe that Black women are smart and fun, ambitious and caring, determined and loving. At HelloBeautiful we do it all and ‘we make it look good.”

About MadameNoire

MadameNoire is a sophisticated lifestyle publication that gives African-American women the latest in fashion trends, black entertainment news, parenting tips, and beauty secrets that are specifically for black women. Black women seek information on a wide variety of topics including African-American hair care, health issues, relationship advice and career trends – and MadameNoire provides all of that.

About iONE Digital
iONE Digital is the #1 digital platform for the Black, Latino, and New Urban communities, reaching millions each month through its suite of social, local radio, and highly targeted news, entertainment, video, and lifestyle content offerings. It owns and operates several branded destinations, including Cassius Life, GlobalGrind (Millennials), HelloBeautiful (Women), NewsOne (Affluent), Bossip (Pop Culture), Hip Hop Hired, and MadamNoire, as well as social networking sites such as BlackPlanet and BlackPlanetRadio. iONE Digital was launched in 2008 by Radio One, Inc. [NASDAQ: ROIA and ROIAK, radio-one.com] to complement its existing portfolio of media companies targeting Black Americans.