Category: Interviews and Guest Speaking

Our honorees for this year were Renata Simril, President & CEO, LA84 Foundation; Shelley Smith, Reporter, ESPN; and Claudia Teran, Executive Vice President & General Counsel, FOX Sports and Deputy General Counsel, Fox Networks Group.

Keynote Presentation: Rachana Bhide, Leadership and Organizational Psychologist

The evening began with a keynote presentation from Rachana Bhide. Bhide is an organizational development expert with 16+ years of experience leading change management programs for Fortune 100 companies on three continents. She currently serves as a lecturer to various universities and non-profits organizations.

Bhide’s recent work focuses on effective ways to engage men in organizational diversity efforts. She spoke on this topic for her keynote, emphasizing the importance of men championing women in the traditionally male-dominated field of sports. Using her own personal experiences of being bolstered by men in her life, including family members and friends from graduate school, Bhide not only encourages men to support women in the workplace, she also encourages women to seek out male mentors in every step of their career.

Renata Simril, President & CEO, LA84 Foundation

Simril was introduced by the Honorable Mark Ridley-Thomas, an old mentor from her time as Development Deputy for the Los Angeles City Council.

Service is at the very heart of who Simril is. Prior to college, Simril served three years in the military as the only female staff member in an all-male unit. Over two decades, she has worked in both the civic and private sector in various roles that exemplify her commitment to leadership and service.

“Service is the price you pay for the space you occupy,” said Simril. “At every point in my career, I’ve always found ways in which to give back to the community.”

Currently, Simril is the President & CEO of the LA84 Foundation. The organization aims to carry on the spirit and the legacy of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Summer Games through its investment in positive youth development through sport.

“What inspires me? I’m inspired by the LA84 Foundation and our mission to strive for excellence. I’m inspired to lead by example for those who follow. I’m inspired by the next generation,” shared Simril.

Shelley Smith, Reporter, ESPN

Smith was introduced by Alison Howard, Vice President of WISE Los Angeles, who read a letter on behalf of her daughter, Dylann Tharp who was unable to attend. Tharp is a producer at NFL Network who is following in her mother’s footsteps.

Smith is a trailblazer for female reporters in the sports industry. Now a four-time Emmy winner, she was one of the very first females on the sidelines and behind-the-scenes of broadcasts.

“People wondered why there was a woman in the locker room,” shared Smith. “It took everything I had to convince people I was professional and I was there to do a job. I wasn’t there to get a date, I was there to work.”

Over the years, Smith has worked for the preeminent voices in sports, including ESPN and Sports Illustrated. She has covered just about every sporting event in existence and has broken many stories throughout her career.

On top of her storied career, Smith is also a three-time cancer survivor who works to spread awareness of the disease.

At the end of her acceptance, Smith made sure to close things off full circle by thanking her own mother for helping to pave the way for her accomplishments.

Claudia Teran, Executive Vice President & General Counsel, FOX Sports and Deputy General Counsel, Fox Networks Group

Teran was introduced by Eric Shanks, President, COO & Executive Producer of FOX Sports, who has seen Teran in action both in and out of the boardroom throughout the years.

In her current role, Teran is responsible for all global business and legal affairs at FOX Sports. Her team in particular is responsible for domestic and overseas sports rights acquisitions. Additionally, she is also the No. 2 legal executive for Fox Networks Group at large.

“Seventeen years ago, it was unlikely that there would even be another woman in the room for some of the negotiations I was tasked with being the lead on,” said Teran. “So I was relatively used to walking into rooms and people looking around, trying to figure out who exactly I was supposed to be.”

Despite her poise and confidence in the boardroom, Teran imparted that rage and passion can often lead to great ideas.

“It’s okay to be mad, as long as you do something proactive about it,” said Teran. “Use the anger to turn off your doubting and refocus to find your clear voice. Your idea just might be the catalyst for change.”

Congratulations again to our outstanding honorees – we look forward to working with them in 2017 as each recipient joins the WISE Los Angeles Advisor Board!

The WISE WITHIN mentorship program hosted their midpoint session for the group this month at Fox Studios.  This is the second session out of three, and is typically focused on a personal and/or professional growth activity. This year’s session was centered around design thinking.  Rachana Bhide, MA from Columbia University in New York and global change management expert, delivered a crash course on the topic.   The session allowed those in attendance to become educated on the emerging business practice, heavily used by forward thinking industries, such as technology, consumer products and those companies in Silicon Valley.

Design thinking is a movement away from “process design” to “human-centered design”.  This means studying what customers do, visiting their workplaces, and observing their behavior. Based on these insights, solutions and programs can be designed that improve customer/fan (or employee) satisfaction and efficiency.  Much of the focus in sports is about the fan experience, so this shift to human-centered design is very relevant. The group was taken through the entire cycle of design thinking: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. They then built their own prototype and presented to each other. “This was a great session for the group because it really showed how relevant this methodology is for the sports and entertainment sectors,” noticed Rachana Bhide.

“Learning about and being able to try design thinking with the mentorship group was a fun, innovative and informative way for each of us to grow individually and as a group,” said Katie Lavin, a two-time mentor of the program.  “We were able to dive deeper into our personal sport experiences and apply them to business opportunities.  Learning about and applying design thinking is a development tool at all levels.”

Going forward, the mentors and mentees will have the opportunity to take some of what they learned back into the workplace and put design thinking into practice.

In addition to the design thinking workshop, the group was lead on a studio tour by Fox Sport’s, Heather Munson, where they visited the studio set stages and the “behind the scenes” of the editing rooms.

The next event for the mentorship program will be the wrap-up event taking place in the Fall and will conclude the six-month program. Those interested in getting involved as a mentor or mentee should look for the start of the application process at the beginning of the year.  More information can be found on here.