Karen Horne is Senior Vice President, Programming Talent Development and Inclusion for NBC Entertainment and Universal Television Studios.
Horne, who reports to Lisa Katz and Tracey Pakosta, Co-Presidents, Scripted Programming, NBC Entertainment, is responsible for overseeing in-front-of and behind-the-camera primetime diversity efforts for NBC and Universal Television. Horne’s lengthy resume includes a variety of disciplines and contacts. She served as Director, Creative Affairs, at IDT Animation in Burbank. She designed, implemented and oversaw Nickelodeon’s Writer Fellowship Program.
Horne also worked at HBO in Los Angeles as a co-producer for the Emmy Award-winning animated series “Spawn.”
We recently caught up Horne over lunch to talk early inspirations, diversity, and rise to success. Below are some highlights from our in-depth chat.
On her start in the game:
“In my senior year of college, I got a job working at ABC as a receptionist. And I wanted to be a broadcast journalist and I at an event got to meet Barbara Walters and I said to her, “You’re the reason I am where I am studying broadcasting and I want to be you.” And she was very gracious and said, “You should do this. There is enough room to go around. You are the reason why I continue to do this. Please don’t let anyone stop you.” But then I stood back and I looked at the line of people waiting to meet Barbara and the line of people waiting to meet her boss and I was like who is he and what does he do because more people wanna meet him than her and she’s Barbara Walters and that’s kind of when I learned about the offices that I now sit in”.
On the success of NBC’s writer’s program that she oversees:
“We have writers, a writing team, that was in a writers program five years ago and they wrote the Gabrielle Union pilot which is a Bad Boys movie spinoff. So just five years ago they were in our writing program and now they’re creators and executive producers of this pilot that stars Gabrielle Union, Jessica Alba, you know from Jerry Bruckheimer’s production”.
On the challenges she faces:
“Well, often times people don’t recognize talent until someone else does. So I’ve seen people, you know it’s just, and people always, I would say, have the people that they like and they think that they want so if there’s any challenge it’s me not saying I told you so to people when they meet these but I luckily work for a company where diversity is in our DNA. It’s in the credo that when you start, you get the credo which is what the rules are done that we believe in what we believe in and diversity is listed like number two and Steve Burke is the chairman of NBC Universal. When he has his staff meetings the first thing he talks about is finance. The second thing he talks about is diversity. So it is, you know, it’s not within our company. The challenge I think if anything sometimes it’s our shows to try to make them have a buy-in, you know, like everyone thinks that their show is difficult to do or, you know, that someone might not get it so it’s having our shows have that buy-in for the candidates who are coming from our program. But then they see the success of the people who have come through our programs and know that if they’re gonna take a chance quote-on-quote on a new rider they should take someone from that, you know, that we’ve championed and worked with”.
Since 2000, NBC has been dedicated to discovering and nurturing on screen and behind-the-camera talent of diverse and inclusive backgrounds through the NBC Talent Infusion Programs (NBC TIPS).
NBC TIPS are amongst the most extensive and robust diversity and inclusion programs in the television industry. They feature more than 20 programs including the network’s tentpoles: Writers on the Verge, the Diverse Staff Writer Initiative, Emerging Directors Program, StandUp NBC nationwide search for stand-up comedians and the NBCUniversal SHORT FILM FESTIVAL that celebrates diverse stories and the filmmakers who create them. NBC also partners with organizations such as Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE), National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), The Second City and The Groundlings on additional programs.
NBC TIPS alumni are celebrated producers, writers, directors and actors in the entertainment industry who have gone on to win Emmys, Golden Globes and SAG Awards and include Alan Yang, Mindy Kaling, Deon Cole, Lil Rel Howery, Keto Shimizu, Natasha Rothwell, Danny Pudi and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel. For more information, visit NBCUniTIPS.com.
