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Neal Kendall
Executive Producer, Tavis Smiley
Neal Kendall is the award-winning producer behind the PBS late-night series hosted by Tavis Smiley.
The veteran talk show producer's credits include CNN's Larry King Live, CBS's The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder and NBC's Later. Kendall produced a series for the Oxygen network, Conversations from the Edge with Carrie Fisher, which was nominated for a Women's Imaging Network award, and previously received a Cable Ace award for his work on Larry King Live.
He is a three-time NAACP Image Award winner for his work on Tavis Smiley. Kendall began his career with NBC in New York, with stints at CNBC and NBC Sports.
Denise Pines
Creative Consultant, The Smiley Group, Inc.
Denise Pines is responsible for strategic planning and business development for The Smiley Group, Inc. (TSG). TSG is a communications and advocacy firm that supports human rights and related empowerment issues. It serves as the holding company for Tavis Smiley Presents, TS Media, Inc., Smiley Radio Properties and High Quality Speakers Bureau, which together encompasses broadcast and print media, lectures, symposiums and the Internet.
Prior to joining TSG, she was president of Pines One Publications where she received several awards for her trade publications.
Karen Hunte
Executive Director, Program Development
Karen Hunte oversees the program development and production of dramas, documentaries, public affairs, science, art and international co-productions for the national PBS schedule.
Her documentary projects include: Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State, a KCET co-production with the BBC; the five-part How Art Made the World (BBC); a history and travel series, Global Tribe, and the upcoming Stalin, Roosevelt & Churchill: Behind Closed Doors. She is also responsible for WIRED SCIENCE, a science show in partnership with Wired Magazine.
Prior to joining KCET, Hunte served as a television exec at Out of the Blue Productions at Sony Pictures and as a development exec at Warner Bros. Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and Hollywood Pictures.
Venus Williams
V Starr Interiors
Venus Williams decided that on top of maintaining a world-class tennis career, she wanted to own her own interior design firm.
Florida-based V Starr Interiors began with the same goal as many great companies—to create a better world. With this vision, Williams began to learn all she could to accomplish her dream of providing environments that offer solutions in creative ways and of developing surroundings that give the experience of calm, pleasure, joy and peace.
With her team of designers, Venus is helping clients like Tavis Smiley, for whom V Starr designed the show's set, appreciate that a successful interior plan will help them achieve an easier, more comfortable lifestyle–a better world.