Tiffany Smith-Anoa’i, Moderator

Vice President, Diversity & Communications, CBS Television

Tiffany Smith-Anoa’i was appointed Vice President, Diversity & Communications, CBS Television in 2009, expanding her current role in the Communications department and establishing a newly created executive position on the West Coast to build diversity efforts across the Company. Smith-Anoa’i reports to CBS Entertainment Chairman Nina Tassler on new and existing programs that recruit, nurture and hire diverse talent to work in front of and behind the camera of CBS programming while continuing to report to Chris Ender, Executive Vice President, Communications, CBS Corporation, for all her ongoing and developing CBS Communications duties. With a career spanning more than two decades Tiffany N. Smith-Anoa’i has emerged as one of the most influential and valued professionals in the arena of Diversity and Communications within the entertainment industry.

Acting as a liaison, Smith-Anoa’i works with national multi-ethnic media coalitions, creative executives and casting directors from the CBS Network & Studio to insure diverse talent is represented both in front of and behind the camera. Smith-Anoa’i also maintains relationships with organizations representing diverse talent and engages in open, constant dialogue with agencies, guilds and established workshop/fellowship programs in the development of innovative methods designed to cultivate diverse talent. Her jurisdiction includes the annual “CBS Diversity Symposium” and the “CBS On Tour Mentoring Program,” where executives visit schools to educate and encourage students interested in careers within the entertainment industry. In addition to her executive duties, Smith-Anoa’i, who first joined CBS Entertainment in 2000 as a Senior Publicist for primetime series, continues to draw upon her background and expertise as a network publicist on various projects and network specials, including the annual Grammy Awards®.

Prior to her work at CBS, Smith-Anoa’i was responsible for all aspects of publicity and promotions for Image Public Relations. There, she took on a multitude of projects, including organizing the global press outreach for “Sinbad’s Soul Music Festival.” Preceding her position at Image Public Relations, Smith-Anoa’i worked for NIKE, Inc. where she launched their NIKETOWN stores in, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

Smith-Anoa’i continues to be dedicated to her community and several charities, including Big Brothers, Big Sisters and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She also maintains a close relationship with her alma mater, Howard University, where she graduated with honors from the School of Communications. In 2013 Howard University presented her with the “Global Visionary Award” for Outstanding Leadership in Diversity and Communications. She currently resides in her home town of Los Angeles with her husband Reno J. Anoa’i and their daughter.

Daisy Auger-Dominguez

Vice President, Talent Acquisition and Organization & Workforce Diversity at Disney ABC Television Group

Daisy Auger-Domínguez is Vice President, Talent Acquisition and Organization & Workforce Diversity at the Disney | ABC Television Group where she is responsible for the strategic direction, implementation, and alignment of talent acquisition and organizational diversity and inclusion. She leads recruitment and diversity teams who focus on making the Disney | ABC Television Group the destination for talented people with a passion for creating compelling content that engages consumers around the world. The Disney | ABC Television Group is composed of The Walt Disney Company’s global entertainment and news television properties, owned television stations, and radio stations. This includes ABC Entertainment Group, ABC News, ABC Owned Television Stations Group, Disney Channels Worldwide and ABC Family.

Prior to the Disney | ABC Television Group, she was Managing Director, Executive Search Initiatives at Time Warner, Inc. where she was responsible for enhancing Time Warner’s executive brand with diverse communities, and attracting and recruiting diverse executives across the enterprise.

As the Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion and Vice President, Talent Acquisition at Moody’s Corporation she launched and led the company’s first global diversity and inclusion function and concurrently managed Moody’s recruitment in the Americas. Daisy began her twelve-year career at Moody’s as a credit risk analyst covering domestic municipal and global corporate project finance transactions in the transportation sector. As Manager, Philanthropic Programs, she implemented global corporate citizenship programs and strategies.

A passionate supporter for the advancement of women and girls, and diversity and inclusion, Ms. Auger-Domínguez has received numerous national and local honors for her work including a New York City Council Community Involvement Award, El Diario/La Prensa’s Latinas Destacadas Award, Time Warner’s Andrew Heiskell Community Service Award, and in 2002 was selected by the U.S. Embassy of Spain as one of fifteen Young Hispanic Leaders. She is a 1998 alum of the Coro Fellowship for Leadership in Public Affairs.

Ms. Auger-Dominguez has presented or moderated at numerous conferences and forums on diversity and inclusion sponsored by such organizations as the Conference Board, the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC), the Global Organization for Leadership and Development, McKinsey and Mattel.

She serves on the board of the Council of Urban Professionals, the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communication’s (NAMIC) and Promax BDA’s Diversity Roundtables, the FCC Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age, and as advisor to several professional organizations.

Daisy holds an M.P.A. from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU and a B.A. from Bucknell University. Born in New York City to parents of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent and raised in the Dominican Republic, she now resides in South Pasadena, CA with her husband and daughter.

Kenya Barris

Creator, Black-ish

As a writer, Kenya Barris is known for his quick wit and unabashed sense of humor. Barris started out as a writer in 1998 and has worked on several television shows, including CBS’s Listen Up, The CW’s The Game and Girlfriends, and Fox’s I Hate My Teenage Daughter. He has also sold a number of pilots, including America’s Next Top Model, which he co-created and is currently shown in 49 countries with 21 internationally-formatted offshoots, as well as a ten-part mini-documentary music series entitled Music Love for Warner Brothers, that he is directing and executive producing with Michael Rapport. The most recent projects that Barris wrote and created include, BET’s The Start Up, starring Diggy Simmons, and We Got Next, Hulu’s first half-hour comedy series. Black-ish is loosely based on his own life. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Barris is married with five children and currently resides in Sherman Oaks, CA.

Jenni Gold

Founder, Gold Pictures and Director, CinemAbility

Jenni is considered a triple threat in the world of entertainment. Her editing and screenwriting skills serve as a foundation for her directorial efforts which have received multiple awards and have placed her among the best in her field as a Director Member of the Directors Guild of America. Jenni is the founder of Gold Pictures, Inc. a development / production entity which was established in 2001. In addition to directing, CinemAbility, Jenni has co-written and is developing narrative feature films including a suspense thriller titled “Adrenaline,” a romantic comedy titled “Mr. December” and a family film titled “Lucky.” She also recently directed a comedy pilot titled “8 Bit Animal Playhouse – Starring Jason Mewes” and is producing a documentary titled “Burroman” about the largest donkey rescue in the world. Jenni also launched a corporate division of Gold Pictures to service well-known clients including The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. Jenni has Muscular Dystrophy and has used a wheelchair since the age of seven. She went to film school at the University of Central Florida where she graduated Summa Cum Luade with two BA degrees, one in Motion Picture Production and another in Radio and Television Broadcasting. Her passion for storytelling and entertaining the audience is clearly evident in her work and achievements.

Sara Hess

Co-Executive Producer, Orange is the New Black

Sara Hess began her TV writing career under the tutelage of David Milch on his iconic “Deadwood” at HBO. She went on to work for seven years as a writer and producer on global smash hit “House,” and is currently a co-executive producer on Netflix’s most-watched show “Orange is the New Black.” She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sil Lai Abrams

Founder & CEO, Truth in Reality

Sil Lai Abrams is a NABJ award-winning New York City based writer, inspirational speaker, and domestic violence awareness activist. Her passionate belief in the transformative power of greater self-awareness and personal accountability is the motivating force behind her work to empower others to create empowered lives, healthier relationships and end violence against women. Sil Lai is the founder & CEO of Truth in Reality, a media advocacy organization committed to changing the way that women of color are portrayed in the media, especially on reality television. Through digital advocacy, public awareness campaigns and educational programs she aims to change society’s acceptance of relational violence and ultimately reduce its incidence in the Black community.

Sil Lai has appeared on ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, FOX, BET, Court TV, and TruTV as an expert on relationships and domestic violence, and been featured in national magazines such as Oprah, Redbook, EBONY, Black Enterprise and Sister 2 Sister. Her inspirational life story and practical spiritually-based advice has helped Sil Lai become a highly sought after public speaker and workshop facilitator, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Medical Association, Harvard University, and Dress for Success being just a few of the distinguished organizations that have used her speaking services. She has also been featured in PINE-SOL’S “POWERFUL DIFFERENCE” CAMPAIGN, a national cause marketing effort that celebrates women making a positive difference in their communities.

Sil Lai is an active supporter of organizations that combat domestic violence. In addition to being the founder of Truth in Reality, she serves on the Board of Directors for the NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE. For additional information on Sil Lai, please visit her personal website at sepiaprocess.com.

California Supreme Court Justice Eileen Moore

Author, Race Results: Hollywood vs the Supreme Court; Ten Decades of Racial Decisions and Film

Eileen C. Moore is a justice on the California Court of Appeal. She graduated cum laude and received her Bachelor of Arts from University of California Irvine in 1975, her Juris Doctor from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1978, and her Master of Laws from the University of Virginia in 2004. She was appointed to the Superior Court of California in 1989 by Governor George Deukmejian, and to the Fourth District Court of Appeal in 2000 by Governor Gray Davis. Moore has been honored by and received awards from UCI, Pepperdine University, Consumer Attorney Association of Los Angeles, Consumer Attorney Association of California, California Women Lawyers, Orange County Women Lawyers, the American Board of Trial Advocates, Chapman University, the Department of Education and Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 785. She spent her nonjudicial legal career in private practice in Newport Beach. From 1965 until 1972 she practiced as a registered nurse, including service as a combat nurse in Vietnam. She is a lifetime member of Vietnam Veterans of America. Her first book, Race Results, about racial discrimination in Hollywood films and the courts, won four national awards. Her second book, Gender Results, about gender discrimination in Hollywood films and the courts, was officially published on November 11, 2014.

Chris Nee

Creator, Doc McStuffins

Humanitas Prize and Emmy Award-winner Chris Nee is the creator and executive producer of Disney Junior’s “Doc McStuffins,” an imaginative animated series about a six-year-old girl who runs a clinic for stuffed animals and broken toys out of her backyard playhouse.

Nee’s inspiration for the series is two-fold based on her childhood which was spent helping out in her mother’s popular independent toy stores, and her more recent experience as a mother to her young son who developed severe asthma when he was two years old. After seeing her own child’s anxiety about going to the doctor, she decided to come up with an idea for a show that could help make the process of going to the doctor less scary for kids.

An accomplished children’s television writer, Nee has also managed to juggle a successful career as a documentary and reality TV producer. While on location in Alaska for Discovery Channel’s cult hit documentary reality series “Deadliest Catch,” Nee was simultaneously writing the first “Wonder Pets” Christmas Special for Nickelodeon, which she completed while living in a converted World War II barracks-turned-hotel on an island in the middle of the Bering Sea. She is responsible for helping to discover fan favorite Captain Phil Harris and his sons, Josh and Jake, while doing interviews on the fishing boats. Nee received an Emmy Award nomination for her work on season one of the series. Her other producing credits include R.J. Cutler’s “The Residents” for Discovery Channel and ABC’s “The Real Roseanne Show,” based on actress and comedian Roseanne Barr’s life.

Nee has received multiple Emmy Award nominations for writing and won an Emmy in 2002 for her work on “Little Bill,” the Peabody Award-winning series based on the children’s books by Bill Cosby. Her additional writing credits include the Disney Channel series “American Dragon: Jake Long,” Playhouse Disney series “Johnny and the Sprites” and “Higglytown Heroes,” and Nickelodeon series “The Backyardigans” and “Olivia.”

Nee began her career as an associate producer at Sesame Street International and spent time in Mexico, Finland, Israel and Jordan working on the local productions of the award winning show, before transitioning over to writing for the Sesame Workshop.

A native of Greenwich, Connecticut, Nee is a graduate of New York University and currently sits on the board of the Hollywood Health & Society at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication. She resides in Venice, California with her partner Lisa and their young son Theo.

Jennie Snyder Urman

Executive Producer, Jane the Virgin

Prior to serving as executive producer on the new CW dramedy “Jane the Virgin” Jennie Snyder Urman created “Emily Owens, MD,” also for the CW. Other credits include “Reign” “Gilmore Girls,” “Men in Trees,” “Lipstick Jungle” “90210” and Hope and Faith.” She was also named one of Variety’s “10 TV Writer’s to Watch” in 2012. Snyder Urman wrote the screenplay for the feature film “Something Borrowed” based on the Emily Giffin novel.