Sara Levinson has forged a distinguished career working with several of the world's leading brands, companies that enjoy recognizable and powerful consumer loyalties. Her board experience includes a diverse group of Fortune 500 companies and startup Internet businesses. She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Macy's and Harley-Davidson for over a decade. She is a board member of Cafe Mom, the popular social network for mothers, where she previously served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. And she serves as an advisory board member with startup company, The Flow.net. In operating roles, Sara was the President of the Women's Publishing Group, Rodale Inc, overseeing some of the largest publishing brands in the health and wellness category, including Prevention Magazine and the South Beach Diet books, among others. She was President of NFL Properties Inc, the marketing, licensing and sponsorship division of the NFL, representing the NFL and all 32 teams. She was named the first "Woman of the Year" by Women in Sports and Entertainment. While at the NFL, Sara introduced fan development programs to expand the NFL's fan base, creating local flag football leagues to involve young fans in the sport, marketing to women and casual fans nationally, for the first time in the League's history. Under her leadership, Advertising Age named the NFL as the Promotional Marketer of the year, recognizing the NFL's innovative promotional efforts with women and kids. Sara also served as the President of MTV, Music Television, and held roles at MTV Networks such as Executive Vice President in charge of new business at MTV, Nickelodeon and VH1, and as Executive Vice President in charge of business operations at MTV. During her tenure at MTV, she architected and directed the network's global expansion with the launches of MTV Brazil, MTV Asia (introducing MTV into over 2 dozen countries in Asia), MTV Japan and MTV Latino (Spanish language MTV covering the entire continent of South and Central America). She also served on the board of MTV Europe and Comedy Central's predecessor, The Comedy Channel. She is responsible for bringing MTV Latino, a one-hour MTV program to Spanish language network Telemondo, in the 1980's. She has also worked at Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency as an account executive. And she began her career in media at Showtime Entertainment in the late 70's, starting in the cable business 'before cable was cool.' She currently serves on the Advisory board of National Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) environmental magazine, On Earth. She graduated from Cornell University with a BS degree and from Columbia University with MBA in marketing and finance.
I think getting a MBA was important, not necessarily in my career but in the first jobs. I didn't have the skills at the time and there weren't the opportunities out there, especially for a female, to do things that were kind of going up the ladder. You had to go in with a greater skill set. I wa...(Full transcript available to logged in subscribers.).
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