Cable networks and over-the-top streaming services found favor with the nomination committees for three annual entertainment-industry awards shows: the Golden Globe Awards, the Screen Actors Guild awards and the NAACP Image Awards.

Netflix led all television content providers in nominations for both the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards and the 22nd Annual SAG Awards. FX’s Fargo, USA Network’s Mr. Robot, Starz’s Outlander, Amazon’s Transparent, PBS’s Wolf Hall and ABC’s American Crime Story all received multiple Golden Globe Awards nominations, while HBO’s Game of Thrones, Showtime’s Homeland and Netflix’s House of Cards were the shows most nominated for Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Fifteen cable networks, Netflix and Amazon garnered multiple nominations for NAACP Image Awards, which celebrate the accomplishments of people of color. Click through below for more coverage of the latest 2015 nominations.

Cable, OTT Services Shine in Globes Noms
‘Mad Men’ Gets SAG Nom for Best Drama
BET Leads Cable’s ‘NAACP Image Awards’ Noms

Visit the MCN TV Awards Show page for ongoing coverage of awards season.

SARAH MADIGAN

TITLE: EVP, Content Distribution, Univision Communications

AGE: 38

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Before joining Univision in 2011, Madigan was VP of Distribution, Business and Legal Affairs, at BBC Worldwide Americas; she previously served as an associate at the law firms Greenberg Traurig and WilmerHale.

QUOTE: “As a person who had expertise in another area and moving into media, I really try to dive in and learn and talk to as many people in this space, driven as much by my own panic as much as anything else.”

Opportunity knocks. And it rings, too.

It was a phone call out of the blue that helped to catapult the still-rising cable, media and television career of Sarah Madigan, the executive vice president of content distribution for Univision Communications.

A corporate lawyer by trade, Madigan’s big industry break came way of a “completely serendipitous decision to answer my phone” when a recruiter from another law firm called to inquire about her interest in practicing in the media and entertainment sector, she recalled. In addition to taking the call, she also took the job with Greenberg Traurig’s Media and Entertainment division, which set her up to represent several companies in those sectors, including Univision Communications and Scripps Networks.

“My big career takeaway from that is: pick up the phone, and be open to that [opportunity] when it comes, because you never know when it’s going to,” Madigan said.

And how many calls go into voice mail now? “Not many!”

IN ON FIRST RETRANS ROUND

After joining Greenberg Traurig in May 2008, Madigan spent the next 18 months working closely with Univision as it negotiated its first round of cash-for-retransmission consent deals.

It was also then that she first started to work with two women she considers as mentors — Tonia O’Connor, Univision’s president, content distribution and corporate business development (and Madigan’s current boss); and Lynne Costantini, then with Scripps and now president of business development at TheBlaze.

Madigan is naturally curious and resourceful, both women said, a fair-but-tough negotiator who strives to strike the best deal for her side while showing empathy for the other.

“She’s very disarming and she doesn’t intimidate people. For that reason, people really open themselves up to her, which creates opportunities for her and for the company to build really strong relationships,” O’Connor said.

“I found her to be very spirited, tenacious, clearly willing to take risks,” said Costantini, who worked with Madigan when Food Network was negotiating its first rate reset. “She fights fair. It’s never personal for her, and she’s always respectful of the other person’s position and the other person, period.”

Madigan continues to put those skills in play at Univision, where she oversees content sales and strategies for its broadcast, cable and digital networks.

And with broadband now a prime conduit for video consumption, she also finds herself on the leading edge, investigating a variety of new and emerging distribution models, including those involving “virtual” multichannel video programming distributors and over-the-top multichannel networks (MCNs).

MCNs represent a “very interesting space,” Madigan said, noting that Univision has a relationship with YouTube. On the OTT front, Univision has distribution with Yaveo, DirecTV’s budding Spanish-language service.

“I think we’re starting to see a real phase of proliferation in terms of distributors in this space and new business models, which I see as a huge opportunity for the industry,” she said.

Although the pressures of deal-making and new distribution models keep Madigan on her toes, she does strive to maintain a work/life balance, leaving room for other passions and interests. “I’m a huge eater,” she said. But don’t call her a foodie. “I take all comers in the food department,” said Madigan, the daughter of an artist and a chef.

Art — as in the art of the deal — carries forth, but culinary parts of her upbringing are also apparent. “There’s nothing I like doing more than reading a recipe so that I can tinker with it and make it my own,” she said.

She also loves to read (perfect for those daily subway rides), and is a “huge music nerd,” noting that she was an indie rock and punk rock DJ during her college and law school days. “I don’t DJ anymore, except at home for my wife when I’m playing my iTunes playlist for her.”

Madigan said the courage to carve out that balance comes in part from O’Connor, recalling an “absolutely brutal deal cycle” that required calls and negations to seep into the weekend. But O’Connor still made a point to extract herself from the deal-making fray to attend a church service in which one of her sons was to participate.

“I’m definitely a person who is inclined to workaholism … and that really made an impression on me about prioritizing your life in a 360-degree way as a person,” Madigan said.

BACKS EMPLOYEE PRIDE MOVEMENT

And even at work, it’s not all about business. Madigan is a champion of Orgullo (Spanish for “pride”), a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally (LGBTA) employee group launched last year at Univision.

“Launching a LGBTA employee group is no easy task, but working with Sarah made it better for everyone,” Chiqui Cartagena, Univision’s vice president, political and advocacy and Orgullo’s co-lead, said. “She is such an amazing human being with such a capacity for love and compassion, she just brings magic to everything she touches.”

Orgullo, Madigan said, “has been a labor of love for a lot of people, including myself, and is one of the more moving things I’ve done in my professional career.”

And in addition to answering the phone, Madigan has more practical advice for women trying to rise through the ranks.

“Finding a work environment where you can be yourself, that you’re naturally passionate about, is the best way to be successful professionally and the best way to be happy personally,” she said.

JENNIFER HIGHTOWER

TITLE: SVP, Law and Policy, General Counsel, Cox Communications

AGE: 49

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Before joining Cox initially to handle telephone regulatory matters, held legal positions at Drew, Eckl & Farnham , RaceTrac Petroleum and BellSouth.

QUOTE: “Cox is a company that trusts their employees and empowers their employees to work on new, exciting issues. It is a culture that people want to stay in, and I have been lucky enough to be able to stay.”

Jennifer Hightower always wanted to be a litigator, but found her true passion in the weeds of communications policy.

As general counsel and senior vice president for law and policy at Cox Communications in Atlanta, where she has risen up the ranks since 1997, Hightower oversees all legal functions for the No. 3 U.S. cable provider, with 6 million customers.

In addition to litigation matters, big focuses for Hightower are net neutrality and interconnection issues, but she’s hardly alone there. “I work a lot with my leadership team on policy positions, and we work very closely with our D.C. lobbying office,” the Atlanta-based executive said.

She heads up a staff of 64 and oversees compliance, privacy, legal operations, regulatory affairs, litigation and corporate government-affairs teams on the local and national levels.

TITLE II OUTLOOK

“We are still supportive of the thought process, which may be a losing one, that you should not just automatically go to Title II. I recognize that the politics aren’t with us,” she said of the current fracas over whether to regulate Internet access as a common-carrier service under Title II of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. But “Title II and the economic fees and taxes could totally change the economic landscape,” which could be “exactly opposite of what the president wanted,” she added.

“We’re living in an unprecedented time where the President is personally weighing in on our business, and it is increasingly important to have top-notch people providing counsel,” Cox president Pat Esser told Multichannel News, referring to President Obama’s very public support of Title II classification.

“Jenn has a wealth of telecom experience and brings a practical approach to the increasingly complex legal and regulatory environment in which we operate,” Esser said. “Her leadership will help ensure we can continue to confidently invest and innovate to benefit our customers and communities for many years to come.”

Hightower has said that she loves the “Cox culture.” But what exactly does that mean? “I’ve grown up in my legal profession here. I moved around to several jobs before I came to Cox and once I got here I was able to grow up and become a better lawyer.”

She described that culture as a very supportive atmosphere in which the in-house counsel is expected to take on new challenges, rather than hiring external experts. Thus, Hightower got to work on the launch of voice-over-Internet protocol telephone service and on cutting out @Home Networks, the broadband safety net that Cox started out with. “I was here when we became self-reliant and had to leave @Home,” the Internet-access service partnership with Comcast and others, she said.

“I was one of the lawyers who helped us get into wireless and one of the lawyers who helped us get out of wireless,” she added, referring to Cox’s on-again, off -again experiments in wireless phone operation and sales.

Hightower grew up in Louisville, Ky., the youngest of four children in a “stable, middle-class family.” Her father worked for General Electric all of his life.

She graduated from Vanderbilt and headed to Emory University in Atlanta for law school, thinking she wanted to be a litigator.

After three years at a litigation firm and the “stress” of trying cases, she found that she “hated every minute of it.”

She became in-house counsel for a petroleum company and hated that too, she said, next moving to then-Baby Bell telco BellSouth.

She didn’t hate it. “It was at the time of the [1996] Telecom Act and I happened to work in the corporate group that was working on the act, so I learned hands-on. I came to Cox [in 1997] with a telecom background, and that was when Cox was just getting into telephone.”

What did she like about being a non-litigator? “I like deal work. I like getting to ‘yes’ for the business. I like regulatory work because it is very strategic. It is like puzzle-solving.

“I came to Cox as a contract person,” she said. “So I did all the back-office deals. It is how we got telephone up and running. And eventually I learned how to do interconnection because at Cox you kind of have to learn as you go.

Cox also has been supportive of a female executive with three sons — 11-year-old twins and an 8-year-old.

“When I first had my twins, I was able to work four days a week for the first four or five years, and that was ideal. When my job got bigger, I was no longer able to work four days a week, but flex time is very much encouraged.”

Hightower said she sets limits to achieve a stable home life of her own, and Cox respects that.

She also credits her husband, Scott Hightower, a former Cox executive. “He is truly the rock star and a partner in every sense of the word. In the interests of full disclosure, I met and married my husband here and, because he left, I had more opportunities open up for me.”

FAN OF ‘THE GOOD WIFE’

When she isn’t shaping the policy message for Cox, Hightower likes to spend time with family and entertaining friends, and catching up on the legal machinations of The Good Wife. “It is my favorite show because of the powerful woman role model [a high-profile female attorney balancing career and parenthood] and because of its timeliness in addressing current legal issues.”

Being a woman has been a career advantage, Hightower said. “Being in the cable industry, I think I have had resources and opportunities that I don’t think my male counterparts have had.”

As for mentors, she said, “I would love to give a shout out to my first boss at Cox, [former general counsel] Jim Hatcher, because he really taught me the culture of Cox; to my current boss, [chief financial officer] Mark Bowser, because he took a chance on me, and [chief operating officer] Jill Campbell, because she is so supportive of women.”

What would Hightower like to be doing in five years? “I hope they still want me here. I am not looking for my next job.”

JANE RICE

TITLE: SVP, Distribution, A+E Networks

AGE: 45

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Prior to joining Lifetime and then AEN, Rice was VP, Field Sales, at Disney and ESPN Media Networks; Director of Affiliate Sales and Marketing for TechTV; and her first job in cable was at an electronic-commerce venture connected with Time Warner Cable’s Full Service Network.

QUOTE: “Every deal seems to bring something new, so who knows what’s around the corner next.”

Jane Rice broke into the cable-network distribution business in 1997 at the Paul Allen-owned technology programmer ZDTV. “It was back in the day when it was very easy to get deals done,” she recalled.

You might remember those days. Cable operators had lots of new digital channel space to fi ll. Contracts might be a couple of pages long, as opposed to the thick binders required today. “You went out and you did a deal corporately, and then you had a hunting license to go to each of the divisions to get deals done,” Rice said.

“It was a lot different than it is today, that’s for sure.”

Clearly, it was a good start. Because today, after further learning her craft at The Walt Disney Co., Rice is a senior member of the distribution team at A+E Networks, managing a portfolio of 10 networks and a territory that includes both the United States and Canada.

Not bad for a lass from Northern Ireland who, after winning a green-card lottery at age 22, spent a year doing “ambulance chasing” personal-injury legal work in New York City because she needed to have a job lined up in the States.

FULL-SERVICE START

Her escape hatch was in cable. She landed a receptionist’s job at Catalog 1, a venture of Time Warner Entertainment and Spiegel to sell Eddie Bauer and other retailers’ goods via Time Warner Cable’s Full Service Network. Because Rice had a law degree (from University College London, in England), she soon was asked to help out with talent contracts and other paralegal work.

When her job with TWE was winding down, a boss who had worked at HBO steered her toward ZDTV.

ZDTV (later called TechTV) was in San Francisco, but Rice worked from a sales office in Boston, because her then-fiancé (now husband, Mark McDermott) had landed a job in New England. They bought a home in Falmouth, on Cape Cod, which they still own, and commuted.

For the job at Disney, Rice moved back to New York. Then Disney merged the distribution squads for the Disney and ESPN channels. Rice’s job moved to ESPN’s hub in Bristol, Conn., and she and McDermott bought a home in Fairfield.

“I am not a sports person by any stretch,” Rice related. Americans like to talk about teams by name, and it was a bit baffling at first. “Like Redskins, to me, Red Sox, Bruins — I have no idea.”

The folks at ESPN “were so good to me,” she said. Someone suggested that if she read the sports section in USA Today and listened to ESPN Radio during her driving commute, she’d be able to keep up with most any conversation. “It was the best advice I’d ever gotten.”

At Disney, she worked with Lori Conkling. Conkling then recruited Rice over to Lifetime (as an SVP) when Conkling moved there. In yet another corporate switch, after three months, Lifetime merged into A+E Networks, and Rice has now been there for six years.

“Jane is the quintessential team player,” Conkling, who is now executive vice president of strategy and business development at NBCUniversal, said. She not only actively mentors younger team members but “also does a great job of realistically assessing talent and assessing situations and figuring out the right path so that there’s a win-win at the end of it.”

They worked on many deals together, Conkling said. “She does not let emotion drive a negotiation. She’s able to take a step back and look for creative ways to close issues.”

Even if Rice has to walk into a negotiation cold, without knowing the other players, “she can establish trust very quickly because she’s very true to her word.”

Bottom line, Conkling said: “She’s just fun. She’s just somebody you’d want to work with. And when you’re in deal rooms for five days straight, that’s a really important quality.”

Rice and fellow SVP Michelle Strong head up negotiations with distributors, their boss, A+E Networks distribution president David Zagin, said. Digital matters, such as TV-everywhere, are SVP Mark Garner’s domain. “It’s a very collaborative atmosphere,” Zagin said.

‘A REALLY GOOD LEADER’

In addition to her legal background, helpful with contracts, and the “incredible relationships” she’s forged over the years, Rice gets high marks for keeping her composure when negotiations get di_ cult, Zagin said. “She’s a really good leader” and, to her credit, always wants to learn more and contribute to all facets of the business.

“I think it’s a great, great trait that she’s not complacent with where she is in the organization,” Zagin said.

Asked which deals stand out for her, Rice mentioned the recent comprehensive renewal with Dish Network that includes over-the-top rights: Dish is launching an OTT service soon. Rice said she thinks such OTT services will prove to be “additive” to pay TV. Like A+E’s early embrace of authenticated TV-everywhere services, she said, it demonstrates the programmer’s commitment to reaching viewers however they want to get their content.

When they can, Rice, McDermott and their two daughters — Maddie, 13, and Cate, 7 — head to Cape Cod, where they have a small fishing boat they keep in the water from spring until after Thanksgiving. The girls are big swimmers, so there are many weekend meets to attend. And they’re busy restoring their new home, an 1854 Greek Colonial, also in Fairfield, that Rice calls the “money pit.”

LYNN CHARYTAN

TITLE: SVP of Legal Regulatory Affairs, Senior Deputy General Counsel, Comcast Corp.

AGE: 49

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Partner at WilmerHale, chair of its Communications, Privacy and Internet Law Practice Group; In-House Counsel at The Washington Post.

QUOTE: “Ben Bradlee was there, and I would sit in his office sometimes, and he would tell me stories … He was just such a presence and so funny. I loved him. He was just terrific.”

There’s no rest for the weary when you’re part of Comcast’s legal team in Washington, with all the big deals the media giant has undertaken in recent years. And that’s just fi ne with Lynn Charytan.

She serves as senior vice president of legal regulatory affairs and senior deputy general counsel for the Philadelphia- based entertainment conglomerate. Most recently, Comcast executives said Charytan is playing a central role as the company seeks government approval for one of the biggest transactions in cable history: the proposed $67 billion merger with Time Warner Cable.

“I feel so lucky to be part of this incredibly creative, exciting business … midwifing a lot of things,” Charytan said.

As Comcast’s legal eagle in Washington, Charytan has broad responsibilities, offering advice on regulatory matters and overseeing the company’s advocacy in that arena, including fi lings for proceedings and related litigation and appeals.

HIGH-PROFILE ACTIVITY

During her Comcast tenure, Charytan has been deeply involved in several high-profile court cases, disputes and mergers — including the acquisition of NBCUniversal, where she set up the internal structure to insure compliance with the regulatory strictures of that deal. And she’s crafted strategy for Comcast in still-murky, uncharted legal areas, particularly regarding its duties as an Internet-service provider and on the issue of network neutrality.

Shortly after she joined Comcast in November 2010, Charytan was thrust into a dispute between the company and Internet backbone provider Level 3 Communications over so-called “peering” and Internet-neutrality principles.

“I had kind of an explosive start because we had this huge dispute with another company that just fell into my lap, and it was hugely public, so that was helpful just sort of announcing that I was there [at Comcast],” Charytan said.

Because of her telecom background as a partner in WilmerHale — where she was chair of the Washington firm’s Communications, Privacy and Internet Law Practice Group — Charytan was assigned to handle the Level 3 spat.

“Nobody really understood anything about this,” she said, referring to the questions raised in that dispute. “This wasn’t an issue in the company that any of the lawyers had really, really dealt with.”

Although the long-term answers to the Level 3 matter still need final resolution, Charytan called working on the case “exciting and challenging and new and uncharted territory — and it was just really fun.”

Charytan was named head of Comcast’s new Legal Regulatory Group a little more than a year after coming on board in Washington. She built and staffed that startup unit.

“Lynn has made significant contributions to the communications industry through her decades of work in the federal legal regulatory field, including her efforts on behalf of Comcast over the past few years related to the NBCUniversal transaction, the Verizon Wireless spectrum sale, and now the Time Warner Cable transactions,” Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said. “Lynn is universally respected — inside Comcast and externally for her legal acumen and superb judgment.”

Charytan’s successes include handling Comcast’s appeal of a Federal Communications Commission ruling that found the cable company had illegally placed Tennis Channel, an independent network, on a higher-priced sports tier.

“We had lost at the FCC, and overnight I sort of parachuted in there,” Charytan said. “I put together what I thought was a dream team and we did these killer pleadings and worked like crazy people — really, really hard and really fast.”

The strategy worked, and an appellate court overturned the FCC decision.

When Charytan joined WilmerHale, where she spent 17 years, she was quickly viewed as a star with a sharp legal mind and a tireless work ethic, said William Lake, the exhead of the law firm’s telecom unit, who is now chief of the FCC’s Media Bureau.

“She’s a straight shooter,” Lake said. “She has very good people skills. She’s very smart. And she’s a very skilled advocate. All of those things she brings to bear on everything she does with us.”

In Washington, Charytan works closely with Melissa Maxfield, Comcast’s senior vice president of federal government affairs (who is also in the 2015 class of Wonder Women). “She’s a great person,” Maxfield said. “I’ve learned a lot from Lynn.”

Prior to WilmerHale in 1993, Charytan spent two years as an in-house counsel for The Washington Post, where she worked with legends Donald Graham and Ben Bradlee.

“It was like a dream job,” Charytan said. “I got to review articles before they came out and work with the reporters, who obviously didn’t enjoy anything you said to them.”

At Comcast, Charytan integrated the legal department into the product-development process of all the company’s businesses, anticipating and addressing the legal and regulatory issues raised by new innovations, a part of her job she loves.

PASSION FOR GARDENING

Charytan and her husband Marc have raised three sons, ages 15 to 20, and the family enjoys outdoor activities together. Charytan is also an active member of her synagogue who strictly observes the Sabbath, going totally offline.

“She’s a great mother, a wonderful member of her synagogue, and still produces more work than most other people can manage to do,” Lake said.

Charytan is also a passionate gardener, managing to fi t the hobby into her busy schedule — even at night. “I was trimming azaleas in the dark,” she said. “It’s really stupid, I know, but I had to get it done. I literally cut through my finger.”

Charytan quickly went to a neighbor for assistance — the doctor who had reattached John Wayne Bobbitt’s penis after his wife severed it with a knife. “We called him and said, ‘Do you have a suture kit at home?’ and he said yes,” Charytan said. He fixed up her finger.

MELISSA MAXFIELD

TITLE: SVP of Federal Government Affairs, Comcast Corp.

AGE: 49

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Maxfield was a top political staffer for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota; worked on Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey’s 1992 presidential campaign and his 1994 Senate re-election campaign; and worked at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

QUOTE: “To me, there’s no city that has the heart and the soul that New Orleans does. If I don’t go back, I get an itch, like I’m missing something.”

Melissa Maxfield relished the excitement and fast pace of politics, including her stints working on Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey’s presidential campaign and as a top staffer for Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

“I guess I just got the bug,” she said. “I liked the action, the interaction, with people.”

But by 2003, she was looking to parlay her skills on the Hill to another career, as a lobbyist. And the telecom-media-entertainment space piqued her interest. So she joined Comcast where, after a series of promotions, she now holds the post of senior vice president of federal government affairs.

“I liked the telecom industry because it wasn’t partisan one way or the other,” the New Orleans native said. “It seemed to be an evolving industry and one that was going to be growing.”

‘AN OUTSTANDING LEADER’

Maxfield handles legislative issues for Comcast with Congress and the Obama administration, and is responsible for all of the company’s Washington political activities.

“Melissa is an industry leader in the federal government-affairs space, helping to champion critical industry positions,” Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said. “She has been central in leading our federal government-affairs team for most of the past decade. She is an outstanding leader and advocate.”

When Maxfield joined Comcast’s team in the capital, she said there were only about a half dozen staffers there. She, along with Kathryn Zachem, senior vice president of regulatory and state legislative affairs, built that team to nearly 60 people.

During her decade-plus Comcast tenure, Maxfield has helped formulate strategies to win support for the media giant’s transactions, including major acquisitions such as NBCUniversal.

“It was an exciting and transformative move for the company to be making, obviously,” Maxfield said. “And it was exciting to be part of the inner circle of that, of the planning — before we announced — and then to be one of the people here in Washington that was responsible for leading the transaction for approval as far as the Hill and the administration were concerned.”

She described work on the deal as all-consuming.

“For my responsibility, I had four Congressional hearings in 30 days,” she said. “There was a lot more time between the hearings on Time Warner [Cable] than there were during NBCUniversal.”

Maxfield is also shepherding Comcast’s proposed $67 billion merger with Time Warner Cable in Washington on the government- affairs side, working hand in glove with Lynn Charytan, the company’s senior vice president of legal regulatory affairs and senior deputy general counsel (and 2015 Wonder Women classmate).

“I certainly have a lot of respect for her,” Charytan said. “It’s a nice mutual admiration society going on in our office.”

Maxfield grew up in the Big Easy, the daughter of a physician and a one-time CIA employee. The family relocated to Tampa, Fla., when she was about to start high school. Maxfield made the transition, which she credits to her skill at forging relationships, an asset to this day.

“My parents would probably say that I could walk into a room even as a child and be able to talk to people and not be intimidated or shy,” she said. “Maybe it comes from the fact that I went to summer camp, where I had friends from all over the South, who I kept in touch with or reconnected with even in my adult years.”

The political interests and connections of Maxfield’s parents led her to that arena. She kicked off her career doing political work in 1990 when she worked on now-Sen. Bill Nelson’s Florida gubernatorial campaign.

Maxfield then worked on Kerrey’s 1992 presidential campaign, his 1994 Senate re-election campaign and at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) during his chairmanship from 1995 to 1996. “I liked him because he was a maverick,” Maxfield said. “He was independent … I’d never been to Nebraska when I went to work for Kerrey.”

Before coming to Comcast, Maxfield served as top political staffer for Senate Majority Leader Daschle, working on his reelection campaign.

“She’s a force of nature,” Daschle said. “She has this capacity to make you enjoy working. I never was wild about making a lot of fundraising calls, but she made it fun. Sometimes she’d make it a contest, and sometimes we’d just joke about the calls — not in any deprecating way; we’d just have fun with it. And she was able to do that.”

MADE CABLE CONTACTS

During her career on the Hill, Maxfield met executives from various industries and trade groups, including the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

Comcast was looking to expand its government-affairs office, and Maxfield said then-National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Robert Sachs was one of the people who thought it was a job she might be interested in.

“She’s got a network that I think is one of the best in Washington, D.C.,” Daschle said. “Obviously, she’s got so many people on the Republican and Democratic side that think the world of her. And she’s got a professional network, at Comcast and with the industry. Then she’s got a charity network, the network she’s built around charitable activities. And then she’s got a personal network that’s got nothing to do with work or charity or politics.”

Maxfield is a running enthusiast who squeezes in her exercise in the morning before coming to the office. Her schedule is often a 12-hour workday, ending at 9 or 10 p.m. “I attend a lot of political fund-raisers,” she said.

Maxfield said she is close to her parents in Florida, where she maintains a home; her two sisters, one of whom, Melinda Maxfield, is also a Washington lobbyist; and an 8-year-old niece. There are annual family ski trips out West, to places like Colorado and Utah.

JUDI LOPEZ

TITLE: SVP, Affiliate Distribution and Marketing, NUVOtv and Fuse

AGE: 50

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Her 23-plusyear cable career began with nine years in finance and distribution at Disney Channel , followed by nine years in senior executive positions at AMC Networks.

QUOTE: “If I look at my path, I’ve been associated with some great and powerful companies who have taken their content to the next level. And now with NUVO and Fuse, I know we’ll achieve the same greatness here.”

As a little girl growing up in a small town outside of San Diego, Calif., Judi Lopez always knew she wanted to be in the entertainment business. Despite the urging of her successful Mexican-American parents to become an engineer, Lopez has lived out her dreams as a prominent business and network-affiliate executive for 25 years, a career that has earned her a place in the 2015 Wonder Woman class.

In fact, when Lopez, the top distribution executive at networks NUVOtv and Fuse, attends the Wonder Women luncheon on March 19, it will mark 25 years to the day she started her cable career.

Lopez first got the bug for the bright lights of entertainment and television as a 5-year-old, watching such 1970s shows as The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch. “We were also the first ones in the neighborhood with HBO, and I remember the first thing I watched on HBO was Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie. When you remember the first movie you watched on a premium channel, that has an impact. The cable and television side was always fascinating to me.”

A WOULD-BE ENGINEER

Her parents, successful educators in the area, had other ideas and wanted her to become an engineer. She would eventually attend California Polytechnic State University in Pomona and graduate with a bachelor’s of science in business administration.

Lopez relocated to Los Angeles, where she would eventually work as an auditor for then-startup Disney Channel, at the time a premium service. When the network decided to convert to basic, she lobbied Disney executives to allow her to use her finance skills in affiliate sales as a representative for the Northwest territory, including Alaska and Washington state.

She quickly became one of the network’s most successful sales reps. “When you love what you’re doing and you’re good at it, things start to fall in place in life,” she said.

Lopez would eventually build on her affiliate duties by heading up the company’s C-band home-satellite business and leading the team that negotiated Disney’s first carriage deals with DirecTV and Dish Network.

At Dish, she first met her future boss, NUVOtv CEO Michael Schwimmer, then the satellite provider’s senior vice president of programming and marketing.

Lopez’s Disney career would eventually take her to New York. In 1999, she went to work for Bravo, then owned by Rainbow Media Holdings. Once again, Lopez was in a position to help build a network brand, an underdog role she said she has relished over her 25-year cable career.

“It was interesting to transfer my skill set to help them build their brand,” she said. “When you’re the underdog, you have to work harder to get the attention of both the consumer and the cable world, and we fought for everything we had.”

In 2009 Schwimmer — who had become CEO of upstart Hispanic-targeted network Sí TV — approached Lopez about a position as the network’s senior vice president of affiliate sales and marketing. Lopez jumped at the opportunity.

“Michael knew my background, and he also knew I was the perfect demographic and I could really help make a difference in their distribution, and he was right,” she said. “The profile fit personally and it was the right time in my career — I had almost 20 years of building brands.”

Schwimmer said Lopez’s work ethic and skill set were perfect for the independent cable network, which last year added music network Fuse to its portfolio. “She combines a high degree of professionalism with a deep commitment to serve our network’s target Latino audience,” he said.

Lopez said working for an independent startup has been “tough” but rewarding, particularly with a network servicing a growing and committed Hispanic audience. Since her arrival, NUVOtv has more than doubled its subscriber base to moret than 30 million.

Lopez oversaw NUVOtv’s 2011 rebranding from Sí TV, and was instrumental in the network’s relaunch following its high-profile recruitment of chief creative officer (and part-owner) Jennifer Lopez. “My parents were always the first in line for a lot of things — we were one of the first Mexican-American families in our neighborhood — and within my jobs I was one of the few employees with a Latin last name, so I’ve always been part of paving the way for a new generation and a new voice,” Judi Lopez, who is not related to J-Lo, said.

UPLIFTING VIA EDUCATION

“To see that reflected on television, in the mission that NUVO has, is part of extending what my parents were doing as educators — uplifting Latinos through education. And now I get to do it through media. It’s part of my DNA.”

Lopez also looks to help other women and minorities achieve the same level of success, having served as treasurer for the T. Howard Foundation’s board of directors and as a member and mentor with the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) and Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT).

She advises the next generation of would-be executives to know the business from all perspectives, to sharpen their leadership skills, to be unafraid of making mistakes and to love what you do and know what you’re good at.

Lopez, who has an 8-year-old son, Cameron, said she hopes to continue to love the work that she does. “Hopefully the next chapter will be challenging, but I hope to love what I do with the skills that I have that I can translate and grow into whatever needs to be done.”

SUSETTE HSIUNG

TITLE: EVP, Network Production Management and Operations, Disney Channel

AGE: 51

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Hsiung made numerous job jumps after college: a retail training program at Bloomingdale’s; bookkeeping in MTV’s production department, eventually producing shows there before moving to The Comedy Channel ; stints at J. Walter Thompson and MTV Asia. She landed at Disney in 1997 .

QUOTABLE: “Take risks early in your career. Find what you love. I am surprised when I look back how many risks I took in my career.”

Have the kids in your life been hooked on Teen Beach Movie, Camp Rock, High School Musical or The Cheetah Girls, or been fans of such series as Phineas and Ferb, Dog With a Blog, Hannah Montana, Greek and Lincoln Heights? Then Susette Hsiung is someone to thank.

As executive vice president of network production management and operations for the Disney Channels group, Hsiung (pronounced Shung) has been responsible for more than 1,000 hours of programming and for leading the teams of production companies that have created a succession of hit programming for Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior, as well as ABC Family; from series to movies; from multi-camera comedies to reality/talk shows, specials and on-air promotional messages.

Her list of credits is staggering, with a diverse roster of experience as production executive for HBO Downtown Productions, and as a line producer for The Comedy Channel (now Comedy Central).

SOJOURN IN SINGAPORE

The New York native moved to Singapore for two years, where she served as vice president of production for MTV Asia and spearheaded international ventures, including the launch of two 24-hour cable television channels servicing Far East territories. She began her production career at MTV Networks in 1984, starting as a bookkeeper in the production department, then rising through the ranks to production manager.

“We were all young and inexperienced for the most part,” Hsiung said of those early days of cable. “We made mistakes along the way, but we were all working together. MTV was still struggling for distribution, so I traveled across the U.S. to small towns that I would never have seen, to bring the idea that you needed to have cable TV, and you needed to have MTV as a service.”

Ten years later, she was programming commercials for advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, selling audiences on a thing called “the Internet.”

“The most popular shows were Monday Night Football and Roseanne. So we would insert live commercials into these most-watched television shows, and for example, Monday Night Football, the on-air commentator in that specific market, he would come on and in 30 seconds, If you’re watching football and you want to know [a player’s] stats, log on to Prodigy!” Hsiung said.

“What makes Susette so great at her job is her ability to absorb and integrate new information on an endless variety of topics,” developing and producing Disney Channel original series, Disney Channel original movies and Disney Junior series, said Gary Marsh, president and chief creative officer for Disney Channels Worldwide.

The breadth of her knowledge “is unreal,” Marsh added. “Susette has to know the most obscure Canadian labor laws. She has to understand the exchange rate of the Australian dollar. She has to understand workman’s comp insurance premiums — I mean, the breadth of her knowledge is limitless. Because of that, I’ve been able to channel more and more responsibilities to her and her team.”

Hsiung is now excitedly gearing up for the launch of the Disney Channel movie Descendants later this year, and Teen Beach Movie 2, and the next wave of Disney XD projects.

But what she’s most thrilled about these days is the promotion of women and girls at the company, and efforts to bolster diversity throughout the organization.

“In front of the camera, our sister network ABC is getting a lot of positive press about its embracing of racial diversity, and we also look for that on our kids’ network,” she said. “I’m also trying to champion behind-the-camera diversity, and so hopefully we’ll be able to announce some programs that we will be doing [this] year.

HELPS MIX THINGS UP

As an executive leader for Disney/ABC Television Group’s Global Workplace & Women’s initiative, Hsiung is among two dozen diversity representatives across the enterprise. Under this umbrella, she has developed an in-house task force which hosts quarterly mixers to encourage collaboration and camaraderie among female employees, and she is actively developing her Aspirational Girl network “to be able to make recommendations for new role models and new ways that we look at story and character.”

Hsiung also mentors and sponsors burgeoning executives throughout the Disney/ABC group as part of its Leadership Mentoring Program.

“The way that she models leadership is in a very graceful way while being incredibly assertive,” said Daisy Auger- Dominguez, vice president of talent acquisition and organization and workforce diversity at Disney/ABC Television Group. “Everyone around her knows that she says what she means, and she means what she says.”

She added: “I think Susette is a Wonder Woman because she has galvanized women and men across Disney Channels in a way that I hadn’t seen before — and I’ve worked at some major international companies,” Auger-Dominguez said. “I have not seen this level of passion not just from a leader but from the people around her that this be successful, and, I think, one of the biggest game-changing initiatives that she’s led.”

COURTENEY MONROE

TITLE: CEO, National Geographic Channels U.S.

AGE: 46

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Before becoming CEO, Monroe was Chief Marketing Officer at NGC U.S.; following her tenure as EVP, Consumer Marketing and Digital Platforms, at Home Box Office. Earlier she held marketing positions at American Express and Salomon Brothers and worked in account management at BBDO.

QUOTE: ”Everything happens for a reason.”

It takes a strong will to leave a dream job in the capital of the world to spend more time with your family. But that’s exactly what Courteney Monroe did after 22 years in New York City and a top job at HBO.

Three years ago, Monroe left her post as executive vice president of consumer marketing and digital platforms for Home Box Office. She moved to Washington, D.C., and took a job as chief marketing officer at National Geographic Channel, where she was tasked with all aspects of brand strategy, consumer marketing, digital platforms, social media, ad-sales marketing and licensing and merchandising.

“It was the hardest decision of my life,” she recalled. But more family time — being with her kids, an ailing mother and a husband with a new career, all back in D.C., also her hometown — persuaded her to make the move.

These days, she said, she couldn’t feel more satisfied. Last spring, Monroe was named the CEO of the network. She is responsible for all operations of the domestic National Geographic Channels — the National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo Wild and Nat Geo Mundo — owned jointly by the Fox Networks Group and the august National Geographic Society.

‘KILLING JESUS’

Last year, NGC celebrated its highest-rated and most-watched year in primetime. With Monroe’s emphasis on digital and social initiatives, the network widened its social footprint by 161% and grew overall traffic to NGC websites by 146%.

Under Monroe, NGC launched marketing campaigns for Killing Kennedy, which got the highest total viewership in network history; and the Emmy-nominated Brain Games, the highest-rated series launch for the channel. She’s also led the promotion for the popular franchises Wicked Tuna and Doomsday Preppers.

Perhaps one of the biggest marketing efforts with digital came to bear on the Killing Kennedy movie, when the website offered visitors an immersive experience, complete with historical footage, music and text, through the eyes of President John F. Kennedy and his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Recent management changes at National Geographic Channels are a big vote of confidence in Monroe by Fox Networks Group chairman and CEO Peter Rice. “She intuitively gets the brand,” Rice said. “She has strong ideas, but a very collaborative style.

“In a world of infinite choice, you have to have strong brands that people navigate to,” Rice said.

Monroe’s challenge now is developing hit nonfiction programming that draws a big enough popular audience — and still honors the iconic, 127-year-old National Geographic brand.

Monroe and her team hope to produce hits which are also educational. On the heels of the popular Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which enjoyed one of the largest launches for a TV series last year (90 National Geographic Channels in 180 countries as well as 120 Fox-branded channels in 125 countries); Monroe is bringing back TV host and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson for a late-night talk show series on National Geographic Channel called Star Talk. And she has high hopes for the upcoming Killing Jesus after the ratings blockbusters Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln, movies based on books by Bill O’Reilly.

Monroe has also put a big emphasis on digital by spearheading the launch of a fully redesigned website and rolling out their authenticated TV everywhere product, NatGeoTV.

Monroe’s colleagues credit her with motivating people of varying personalities and skills with a team ethos. “Leadership is an intangible thing,” said HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler, who worked with Monroe during her time at the premium network. “But whatever it is, Courteney has it in droves.

“She walked into a room with great presence and communicated passion and authority … which was very infectious. She had that here, and she’s carried that and then some in the position she has now.”

Monroe began her career at HBO as manager of advertising in 1998, overseeing the campaigns for all HBO series and sports programming. In her second week there, she was handed 13 scripts for a new show called The Sopranos.

“I had no idea what I was getting into,” she said. “That was my first project.”

FAN OF THE BRAND

Monroe quickly became a fan of the brand — something she hadn’t felt in previous jobs at American Express and BBDO Worldwide — fueling much of her inspiration then and since. “HBO satisfied my desire to apply my interest in marketing to something I was super-passionate about, which makes the day more fun and makes you better at your job.”

Monroe went on to oversee award-winning marketing campaigns for some of HBO’s hottest properties, including Sex and the City, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones.

She rose quickly through the ranks at the premium network and was named director, then vice president over all HBO advertising campaigns.

By 2008, after assuming increasingly more responsibility in digital and licensing, she was named executive vice president. More recently, she led the marketing of HBO Go and MAX Go, the company’s digital streaming services.

Her title now is a far cry from where she’d thought she’d be growing up as a kid in D.C. In middle school, Monroe sat in front of a mirror with a hairbrush as a microphone, dreaming of the day she’d become a broadcast journalist.

“I was convinced I would anchor the Today show,” she said.

SANDRA HOWE

TITLE: SVP, Global Marketing, Arris

AGE: 42

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Before joining Arris in 2009 as SVP of Strategic Market Developmenting, Howe held several roles at in a decade at Cisco Systems, including Director of Business Development, Strategic Accounts Market Manager, Regional Sales Manager and Senior Account Manager. She started out at Broadband Networks Inc. in State College, Pa.

QUOTE: “Persistence wears down resistance.”

Sandy Howe, senior vice president of global marketing for Arris, owns the “flawless follow-up” as her strongest super power.

So said her customers and colleagues throughout the industry, recounting tale after tale of something gone awry and how Howe’s trademark blend of empathy and tenacity got it resolved.

“She has this impeccable follow-up,” Nomi Bergman, president of cable provider Bright House Networks, said. “She’s 100% on the mark with it, every time.”

Added Arris chairman and CEO Bob Stanzione: “Tenacity and determination are two of the qualities for which Sandy is best-known. With over 20 years of experience in optical, routing and switching product development, she’s played an important role in some of the largest U.S. cable deployments.”

Kevin Leddy, executive vice president of technology policy and product development for Time Warner Cable, said: “Sandy Howe is among the very best account representatives I have ever dealt with, and I’ve worked with many. She does her homework and often understands our company better than we do — her follow-up is exceptional.”

COOL UNDER FIRE

It’s easier to see a person’s true colors in times of distress than when everything’s working fi ne, Howe’s colleagues noted — like the time when an equipment malfunction bricked a large number of in-home devices she had sold to a major customer. Howe saw the problem through, doggedly connecting answers with questions until everything was fixed, and everyone satisfied.

“Her genuine interest in her customers is what really resonates,” said Joe Quane, who hired Howe at Scientific-Atlanta in 1999. “It’s her effervescent personality and genuine enthusiasm.”

Howe grew up near the “happy valley” that is State College, Pa., graduating from Penn State in 1994 with a bachelor of science in Education.

After a career fair landed her the job offer in what she thought was her vocation of choice — fashion merchandising — she came to the depressing conclusion that it wasn’t for her after all.

“I was devastated and I called my dad — what am I going to do?” Howe recalled. “He said, ‘go into technical sales and know it better than any man in the room.’”

To get sales experience, she landed a job at American Greetings, with a company car and 35 direct reports.

Serendipitously, a small tech startup — Broadband Networks Inc. (BNI), a maker of the opto-electronics used in cable’s hybrid-fiber coax architectures — occupied the duplex upstairs. Soon enough, Howe, at 22, was offered a job in national technical sales. “I called home, and this time my mom answered,” Howe said. “I said, I have this offer from this tiny tech company, should I do it?’ She said, ‘Are you crazy? It’s technical sales, get it on your resume.’”

Five years later, after BNI was purchased, Howe started planning her next move. “I’d been reading about General Instrument and Scientific-Atlanta in Multichannel News and thought, ‘Now’s the time to work at a big company.’”

In 1999, she joined S-A as an account manager to oversee the digital services launch at Time Warner Cable, for its Carolinas territory. She immediately made an impact, Quane noted, converting what at the time was “100% Pioneer” set-top box territory to S-A. From there, she rose quickly, ascending over the next decade to director of the company’s Business Development team.

In 2009, Howe joined Arris as senior VP of strategic market development. Her background in sales, buttressed by a loyal customer base, made it an easy shift. “I believe I understand better than most just what it’s like out there, and what tools salespeople need to be successful,” Howe said.

Her sizable fan base agrees. “I remember when Sandy went to Arris, how happy I was for her — and for Suddenlink,” said Terry Cordova, that MSO’s chief technology officer. “We now had an insider who, when needed, would ‘jump in front of the charging bull’ for us, to rectify any issues.”

Time Warner Cable’s Leddy added, “Other suppliers could learn a lot from Sandy.”

Last year, Howe shouldered a fresh set of challenges, as newly minted senior VP of global marketing for the manufacturer.

By August, she’d turned a corporate desire for consumer brand recognition into an Arris sponsorship of NASCAR racer Carl Edwards, and NASCAR’s first Mexican driver, Daniel Suarez. “The project plan has over 200 items,” she said, including photo shoots, events, branding 1500 items and merchandising.

AN ACTIVE VOLUNTEER

Beyond her day job, Howe is a deeply committed industry volunteer, “especially when it comes to diversity and inclusion.” She serves in several Women in Cable Telecommunications chapters and on the national WICT board, and participates in countless chapter and national events for the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers.

“I’ve had the pleasure of working within the orbit of Sandy Howe for the past two decades,” Sean Bratches, executive vice president of sales and marketing at ESPN, said. “She gives her time and her expertise willingly, and we are all better for it.”

When she’s not leading the marketing team at Arris, Howe is either sailing or relaxing on the beach in Wilmington, N.C., with husband Peter, whom she met during a pickup beach volleyball game in 2002. “You can find me almost every Saturday at 5 p.m. for cocktails at the beach house,” she laughed.

Which makes her personal credo all the more apt: “A pessimist expects the wind not to change; an optimist thinks the wind will change — but a realist adjusts the sails.”

CLAUDIA TERAN

TITLE: EVP and Deputy General Counsel, Fox Networks Group, and General Counsel, Fox Sports

AGE: 41

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: After several years at a private law firm, Teran moved to Fox where she had a “vibrant and exciting” 15-year career supervising a broad international portfolio. She leads a team responsible for all global business and legal affairs at Fox Sports.

QUOTE: “Mom came to the States to go to college and had a very clear mindset from the beginning that … she wanted her daughter to have even more access to do whatever it is she wanted to do.”

Working with Fox Network Group’s Fox International Channels, Claudia Teran has served as a key strategic executive in the expansion of Fox Sports’ international investments, including advising on acquisitions in Latin America, and the launch of Fox Sports Brazil in 2013, as well as acquisitions in Asia for the acquired ESPN/STAR Sports.

On the domestic side of the business, she served as the chief legal adviser on Fox Sports’ successful bid for U.S. rights to the FIFA World Cup for 2018 and 2022.

She has also been a key player in the company’s digital and distribution strategies, moving the linear businesses forward with innovative digital products and opportunities.

There are times, she said, it feels like she’s juggling “a lot of plates spinning 24 hours a day, seven days a week — especially coming with an international background,” said Teran, executive vice president and deputy general counsel for Fox Networks Group.

SPORTS IN HER PURVIEW

She was also recently appointed as general counsel of Fox Sports, where her top priorities this year are restructuring and leading the integrated business and legal affairs of the Fox Sports group globally, and finding new and creative approaches to content delivery across all non-linear platforms, including over-the-top, broadband delivery, as well as video on demand, which, ultimately is part of the job that about bringing the plates together.

“It’s all interlinked,” Teran said. “I started working with international sports, and then we launched an action sports network [that] was domestic. Then it went international. Then it was the involvement in the digital arena, and how it’s become such an important part of our business. It’s about working your distribution, whether it’s on the cable side or the broadcast side; domestic cable or international cable. It all becomes one big picture.”

As if this weren’t enough on her proverbial plate, Teran is in throes of wedding plans with fiancé David Wisnia, "a reformed lawyer" who is the president of POP (the network formerly known as TV Guide Network) and a former executive at CBS and Fox. Three months ago, the couple celebrated the birth of their first child, Grayson Aaron Wisnia.

“That is probably the most challenging transaction to get my mind around,” Teran said of motherhood. “I’m used to working on a schedule, and there are so many things that you want to pack into your day and then this little person arrives and takes up all of your attention. They don’t necessarily work on your schedule.”

Said Fox Sports president Eric Shanks: “It’s rare when you find a spectacular business partner who’s also a spectacular human being. Claudia’s first foray into Fox Sports was our acquisitions business for the FIFA World Cup, and you can imagine all the ins and outs of an international bidding process and working with an agreement of that scale and scope, and she handled it flawlessly. And we have a great relationship with FIFA now because of Claudia.”

Rita Tuzon, executive vice president and general counsel at Fox Networks Group, refers to Teran as “the executive whisperer.”

“She can walk in a room, and everybody’s eating out of her hand in 10 minutes,” she said. “And it’s not just charm. It’s an incredible skill at reading a room, dealing with people. They walk out of there liking her, trusting her and respecting her.”

HER MOM: ROLE MODEL

It’s business acumen Teran learned from her mother. “She’s a really tough cookie,” the Silicon Valley native said. A first-generation American of Bolivian-born parents, Teran’s father was an engineer, now retired; her mother had a dual career, first in computer science before starting her own nurses’ registry.

“I remember watching her at work when I was a kid, and hearing her on the phone when she was having to resolve some kind of issue in her business,” she said, “and I took a lot of that in, in terms of how she interacted with people, how she resolved problems and what her priorities were.”

Teran had long dreamed of resolving complex issues in court. Since kindergarten, she’d wanted to be a judge. It seemed like a great job, “at least in the movies,” she said.

While in law school at New York University, reality set in. “I looked into what my life was going to become if I went that route, and very quickly realize, ‘Meh, maybe that’s not exactly what I thought it was going to be,’ ” she said.

In 1997, she worked as a transactional attorney at Sidley & Austin in Los Angeles for three years, before landing at Fox.

“A lot of what I enjoyed at the law firm was interacting with the clients,” she said. “You work with a client on a deal, and then the client goes away. You work so closely with them and sometimes you never know what happened with the business and, sometimes, with these people that you’ve worked so closely with.”

Being in-house gives her the chance to build the kinds of relationships she wants. “It’s really rewarding to work like crazy on these deals,” she said, “and have a relationship with the end result. To be able to turn on a television or a tablet or a phone, and be able to see the link to thing you’re working on is very, very rewarding.”

Editor's Note: This story was edited on Jan. 26 to correct the description of David Wisnia.

TINA PIDGEON

TITLE: General Counsel, Compliance Officer, SVP of Government Affairs, General Communication Inc.

AGE: 46

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Before joining GCI in 2003, practiced law with the law firm Drinker Biddle in Washington, D.C., representing telecom clients.

QUOTE: “I’m very fortunate to work for a company in an industry where there are opportunities to innovate and help people in a geographic space where there are many challenges.”

When Tina Pidgeon was weighing legal career options while studying at the University of Virginia, she knew what she didn’t want.

“At age 24, 25, I didn’t know about corporate law. I knew, though, that I didn’t want to be a litigator,” she said, with a laugh.

But during the summers of her study, she had opportunities to observe and participate in “the intersection of law, policy and technology.” That path brought her to the Washington, D.C., office of Philadelphia-based law firm Drinker Biddle, where she represented telecom clients before the Federal Communications Commission and state regulatory commissions. One such client was Alaska’s General Communication Inc., which she joined in 2003.

That decision has ultimately taken her family — her husband, former Comcast communications executive Tim Fitzpatrick, and their two young daughters — on a journey to the nation’s largest state. She still hasn’t gotten accustomed to the sun-filled summer nights.

Pidgeon manages GCI’s 20-person legal and regulatory department and the attendant efforts of outside law firms and consultants. As a member of GCI’s seven-person senior management team, she has also helped guide GCI into an array of new businesses as it broadens its infrastructure and its lead role in Arctic business development.

ABOUT SERVING ALASKA

Pidgeon said GCI’s mission remains the same as when it was founded 30 years ago: “Through competition, and a mix of innovation and disruptive technology the company aims to better and more effectively serve the people of Alaska. That’s GCI’s history and its mantra to this day.”

Ron Duncan, GCI co-founder, president and CEO and Pidgeon’s boss, said that she came in “under di_ cult circumstances” — a 2010 plane crash took the lives of her predecessor, Dana Tindall, and the GCI executive’s 16-year-old daughter, as well as longtime Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and others. “It wasn’t easy. She had to solidify the department,” Duncan said.

Since then, “she’s grown tremendously from being a general counsel. She continues to oversee our legal and regulatory affairs, but she’s expanded her responsibilities to risk management and strategy.”

Pidgeon has helped GCI to expand its wireless business and to bring to its portfolio six TV stations, including one in GCI’s home market of Anchorage, and myriad forms of broadband.

A national specialist on universal-service policy, Pidgeon has guided GCI through FCC proceedings to help preserve essential communications and worked with Alaska’s governor and congressional delegates to restructure its proposed reform to account for critical needs in remote areas. She also directed a team that secured more than $40 million in capital funding to deploy 3G and 4G services throughout Alaska.

Pidgeon played an integral role in securing an $88 million federal broadband stimulus loan/grant for the initial funding of GCI’s TERRA network that brings terrestrial broadband to 70 remote, economically challenged communities in western Alaska. The network spreads across thousands of miles, the equivalent of 20-plus states.

“For many people living in remote, tiny communities, GCI is the only connectivity they have to their families, government services and health care,” she said. “You can’t get to many of these people by roads and traditional means.”

Frozen tundra is one of many “logistical challenges” GCI faces in servicing Alaska.

“We’re building towers on mountains. The construction season is only 90 days. Heavy equipment is lifted in by helicopters,” because it would sink when the tundra thaws. “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

Pidgeon is also active in cable interests in the lower 48 states. She expects to join the American Cable Association board in June. And she regularly finds her way back to Washington, D.C., where she has met five times with Jason Ryan, manager of rights clearances and standards and practices at TV One, via a Women in Cable Telecommunications mentorship program.

“Her perspective and insights are invaluable,” Ryan said. “The mentorship program has an end date, but we plan on keeping our relationship going past that.”

Pidgeon also has developed a relationship with Marci Burdick, executive vice president of broadcasting at Schurz Communications, stemming from retransmission renewal discussions for KTUU, the NBC affiliate in Anchorage.

“Negotiations are always challenging, and GCI had just bought KTVA, the CBS affiliate,” Burdick said. “We realized our companies were similar, that we are both relatively small with holdings in cable and broadcast, and experience challenges and opportunities that exist in the greater media space.”

She called Pidgeon “very fair, and a great strategic thinker,” and they continue to converse over non-competitive issues and have seen each other at Notre Dame football games. Pidgeon is an undergraduate alum, while Schurz is headquartered in Mishawaka, Ind.

BUSY YEAR FOR RETRANS

For GCI, 2014 was very busy on both sides of the carriage negotiating table. Before year-end, GCI completed deals for continued carriage of some of its TV stations; for Discovery Communications, as part of NCTC; and a retrans pact with Chena Broadcasting- owned WTVF, the NBC affiliate in Fairbanks. “It was good to get things done. NBC has the Super Bowl,” Pidgeon said.

In 2015, GCI’s gaze will center on the imminent closing of its acquisition of Alaska Communications’s 33% stake in the companies’ Alaska Wireless Network.

KATY FERGUSON

TITLE: EVP, Managing Partner, Entertainment, Horizon Media

AGE: 40

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Coming to Horizon, Ferguson had extensive cable expertise in such roles as VP, Group Account Director, Initiative; VP, Associate Media Director, PHD.

QUOTE: “People used to say that curiosity killed the cat. But in this business, curiosity is a really important thing, as is persistence — to be a ‘nothing is impossible’ kind of person. And don’t be afraid to take risks and fail. You learn a lot in life when you fail.”

Years ago, when Katy Ferguson was just starting to climb the corporate ladder as a media planner, she was passed over for a promotion. She was the most senior person in line for the new gig, but a co-worker landed the position because of direct experience working with a certain client.

“It wasn’t soul-crushing, but I was very disappointed,” related Ferguson, who is now executive vice president and managing partner of entertainment at Horizon Media, a media planning and buying agency that manages $4.7 billion in client investments.

Shortly after that bleak moment, “another opportunity opened up that allowed me to eventually get my first job in entertainment. If I’d gotten that other position, I may not have ended up doing what I’m doing now.”

PASSIONATE FOR ENTERTAINMENT

Working on advertising accounts related to showbiz is one of the most exciting aspects of Ferguson’s job. “For me, it’s really easy to be passionate about the [entertainment accounts] in the workplace, because they’re what I’m interested about in the real world as well. It’s fun to work on campaigns for some of my favorite networks and shows.”

In the past, when she worked at the agency PHD, Ferguson was involved with HBO and Cinemax campaigns. At Initiative, she worked on the Showtime, CBS and Fuse accounts.

Her current list of clients at Horizon includes Scripps outlets HGTV and Travel Channel and brands within the A+E Networks family, including A&E, Lifetime and History.

Ferguson’s efforts helped make Bates Motel the mostwatched original drama on A&E among the 25-54 demo. Bonnie and Clyde, A+E Networks’s first simulcast event, garnered a total audience of 10 million. And History’s Hatfields and McCoys ranked as the single biggest launch in the history of cable, winning a Gold OBIE.

Her accomplishments extend well beyond that. When Ferguson started in Horizon’s New York offices about six years ago, there were only a handful of entertainment accounts. Now, there are more than 15. “I spent a lot of time over the last couple of years making sure we had the right tools and resources, and also, most importantly, talent that has allowed us to build this really great practice.”

Joe Hadari, Horizon’s senior vice president and managing director of the brand strategy group, said Ferguson’s challenge moving forward is managing work for all those clients at the same time she keeps up with the movement of the business, “whether that’s new players like Netflix, Amazon or Hulu or people moving away from linear television to other platforms.”

Another ongoing imperative is to get viewers to tune into live TV, said David Campanelli, who heads up national TV buying at Horizon as senior vice president, director of national TV. He works hand in glove with Ferguson’s strategy and planning team.

“It’s a huge challenge to not only get attention for a show, but to get people to watch in that live environment — not six, seven, eight days later when they DVR things and skip commercials that don’t get measured by Nielsen. So it’s not only capturing attention in this incredibly fragmented world, but creating enough interest to get them there for that live event,” Campanelli added.

Hadari noted that a lot of clients are focused on data, so their approach to media planning is very data-driven. “One thing that Katy’s done an amazing job with is taking all that data, all that we can learn about our audiences, and balancing that with the art of reaching an audience — the best way to drive people into our environments to consume content.”

Making her tasks more complex is the very nature of entertainment company promotions. With media clients, timelines to produce campaigns are apt to shrink, because plans for content can change very quickly, noted Sheri Roder, chief of WHY at Horizon, who gives Ferguson’s team insights into the behavior of particular audiences.

Colleagues said Ferguson’s personality and communications style are key to her success.

“She’s serious about what she does, but she’s not always serious about herself,” Roder said. “She’s honest with clients about both the great and not-so-good news. There are moments when she isn’t afraid to say, ‘This isn’t good enough.’ They can be di_ cult conversations, but that’s how we push ahead.”

DELVES INTO DIY PROJECTS

Ferguson, who grew up in Louisiana near New Orleans, likes to spend her down time being the “entertainment junkie” that she is. But she’s also “a bit of a DIY person” around the house, gardening, making curtains and the like — when she’s not absorbed with her two small children, a 7-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son.

Her husband, Jay Ferguson, who works for Saatchi & Saatchi, is a “true partner. He helps balance my life,” she said.

There are a lot of people that she draws inspiration from, but her parents have been the most influential. “They taught me the value of hard work, and that nothing is really impossible if you’re willing to work for it.”

Her family also instilled in her a philosophy that helped her get through the tougher times, like that moment when she was passed up for a promotion way back when. “It’s that Rolling Stones song, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want,’ ” she said. “Sometimes what you want and what you need aren’t always aligned. You may have disappointments in your life, but there’s a reason for that. And you’ll get what you need.”

SANDRA KAPELL

TITLE: EVP, Human Resources and Administration, Cablevision Systems

AGE: 50

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Before joining Cablevision, Kapell was SVP, Chief Human Resources Officer, at Chartis, an AIG Co.; and SVP at insurance giant MetLife.

QUOTE: “For me, my achievements are all wrapped up in whether or not I’ve been able to help other people be successful. If people have wanted to achieve certain things in their career, have I been able to help them?”

In 1995, when Sandra Kapell and her husband were newly married, they suffered the loss of their first baby during Kapell’s 17th week of pregnancy. “She was just beside herself,” her father, Brian Pemberton, said.

Shortly afterwards, “she called and was a little weepy and emotional, and I said, ‘I’ll tell you what. Let’s go climb Mount Rainier. Your job is to get in physical shape. We’ll take your sister,’ ” Pemberton recalled.

After some protest, Kapell agreed, and, over the next six months, she prepared extensively for the arduous hike in her home state of Washington. Mount Rainier is the second-tallest mountain in the lower 48 states at more than 14,000 feet, and it took plenty of training to get ready for it.

Overcoming a terrible case of altitude sickness and horrible weather, Kapell made it to the top, along with other members of the climbing party.

SETS, REACHES GOALS

“I don’t subscribe to the idea that time heals all wounds,” Kapell said. “I’m as sad today as the day I lost the baby.” But the climb was “definitely” a healing experience.

“It’s one of those life lessons,” she said. “I apply it at work; I apply it to everything. Setting a goal moves you forward. And progress is really, really important. And my dad got that in a way that no one else did.”

Kapell is currently executive vice president, human resources and administration at Cablevision Systems. She has surmounted some pretty tall “mountains” over the course of her career, not the least of which was stepping into an earlier role as senior vice president and chief human resources officer of AIG’s large property and casualty insurer, Chartis.

At the time, AIG was 92% owned by the U.S. government and in recovery mode from its financial meltdown during the last recession.

“When she was at AIG, human resources was completely dismembered, and she really led the HR transformation,” said James Maloney, who worked with Kapell at AIG and is currently a senior vice president at Cablevision. “Within a month of her departure, the U.S. Treasury was paid back in full. She was there through the tough times.”

Cablevision was tackling a tough problem when Kapell joined the company more than two years ago, in September 2012. It was already embroiled in its ongoing, acrimonious dispute with the Communications Workers of America labor union, which represents around 270 Cablevision technicians in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Her crisis-management skills have certainly come into play with that battle, although Kapell opted not to discuss the matter. But there have been other, substantial challenges on her plate that she shared.

“When I got here, the company had been through very, very dramatic management change, and Jim had taken over the day-to-day operations,” she said, referring to James Dolan, Cablevision’s CEO and executive chairman of The Madison Square Garden Co. Chief operating officer Tom Rutledge had left, later to become CEO of Charter Communications.

“[Dolan’s] first task was to centralize HR. There was no centralized HR structure,” Kapell said. “There weren’t people to report to; we didn’t track any human-capital metrics; we didn’t know what our turnover was; we didn’t have a performance-management system.”

Kapell said her task “was a combination of build from scratch, rebuild, and really introduce a completely new prism for the business leaders to look through when they thought about human capital, employees and human resources.”

The initial phase of the transformation effort is complete. “Now, we’re building on that foundation to get the full value for the business leadership team,” Kapell said.

Transformation really gets Kapell engaged. “She has an incredible capacity to identify the root cause of problems and the right solution or program initiative to solve business problems,” Maloney said.

She’s not a “one-sided thinker,” added Kapell’s longtime friend and mentor, Beth Mitchell, who worked with her about 20 years ago at Macmillan Publishing. “She’s clear about what she wants, but she also has the ability to hear and listen to multiple sides of information and to make important decisions based on all the information coming in. And that’s a great manager.”

Kapell wasn’t looking for a job in media and telecommunications, she said, but the business has won her over. “This industry values women in a very honorable, strategic way, and I love that,” she said.

ADVOCATE FOR WOMEN

Advocating for women has been part of Kapell’s mandate over the years. While with MetLife, she helped create the Women Sales Forum, which provided networking and career development opportunities. And she was a key organizer of AIG’s Global Women’s Forum, a mentoring program.

Mitchell said she admires Kapell’s ability to at once be a devoted wife and mother, as well as a successful businesswoman, balancing all three areas of her life. Kapell and her husband, Bill, have a daughter, Olivia, 18. She’s a classical musician who was admitted to both Columbia University — the alma mater of both Kapell and her father — as well as the Julliard School. Their son Andrew, 16, is an avid hockey player who attends The Lawrenceville School near Princeton, N.J.

One of the most important lessons Kapell has learned, she said, is “the importance of your family and the health of your family. The older I get and the older my kids get, that really helps me keep everything else in perspective.”

Another lesson relates to some of her “mountains” at work. “I try not to lose my humanity, ever, no matter how difficult the situation is,” she said. “That’s the lesson that I try really hard to hang onto.”