Mary Ellen Holden

Senior Director, Corporate Initiatives,
Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

Mary Ellen Holden is the Senior Director, Corporate Initiatives for the Institute. In this capacity, she provides thought leadership and has primary responsibility for the Institute’s solicitation, cultivation, stewardship, retention, and growth of strategic foundation partners. She also spearheads the development of a robust New York membership base for the Institute and programming slate for this important entertainment and media community.

Holden boasts a twenty-five-year career in media, marketing and business development in the entertainment, news, sports, live event and promotional licensing industries. Her career began in promotional licensing, sponsorship sales and sports marketing for the USOC, Hanna-Barbera, Jim Henson Productions and Nickelodeon. She participated in The Big Help and worked with CityKids to diffuse the power of stereotypes on children ages 11 and under.

Today, she is one of a select few marketing executives in media who provide companies with a realistic and actionable 360° view of the media ecosystem, revenue opportunities and audience development strategies based on data insights and intuition to responsibly cultivate emerging and iconic brands. As Founder & CEO of MEH Solutions, LLC, a consultancy for the Slash / Economy – Holden is well positioned to engage, educate and influence content creators, audiences and donors about the importance of eliminating unconditional bias and changing stereotypes in media. Clients include: Jack Myers MediaVillage, Kay Koplovitz, Founder of USA Network and Springboard Growth Capital and Standard Media Index (a research tech company).

Holden is a proven cross-functional team leader and partner with CEOs/CROs driving revenue and building diverse multi-platform audience engagement at scale for media companies, content providers and advertisers. A B2B and B2C strategist with deep media pedigree connecting consumer touch points to amplify brand messaging. She provides financial stakeholders with views on the competitive landscape based on the convergence of technology, data, cross-media metrics, content, distribution, audiences and advertising.

Earlier in her career Holden was the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Research at the Newspaper National Network LP (NNN)/N3 Digital where she led the Research team for Delaney’s 2015 Publisher of the Year Runner-Up. Before joining NNN, Holden established herself as a cable television expert, holding senior level marketing, brand and business development positions at USA Network, MSNBC and Nickelodeon.

She is also known for her leadership and innovation in the digital space. As Chair of Barry Diller’s cross-company committee, she cemented alliances for the USAi/IAC portfolio of traditional and digital assets. She was part of the executive team that introduced HSN two-minute short shopping segments on USA and televised the digital only santa.com parade on USA Network – both industry firsts.