Tina Tchen named CEO of 'Time's Up

TINA TCHEN

The celebrity-driven advocacy group Time's Up has named Tina Tchen, the former First Lady Michelle Obama's former chief of staff, as its new president and CEO.

Time's Up was born out of the #MeToo movement after allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer and Brett Ratner.made headlines. Since then, the nonprofit has expanded its work to to fight sexual harassment and abuse beyond the entertainment industry 

“I’ve been living these issues my life,” Tchen told Gayle King and co-anchors on CBS This Morning. “I’ve been a single working mom my entire career, working in places like law firms and the White House so I’ve seen the issues that women confront in workplaces. And I’ve been working on gender equity issues for over three decades,” said the attorney.

The 63-year old Tchen replaces Lisa Borders, who resigned from the chief executive role earlier this year after sexual misconduct allegations were made against her son.

A number of celebrity supporters, including Shonda Rhimes, Reese Witherspoon, Eva Longoria, Natalie Portman and Brie Larson, helped launch the Time’s Up initiative, according to Variety. 

Melinda Gates and Tchen's former boss, Michelle Obama, have helped the organization raise a war chest of #24 million to be used to provide counseling and legal help to those women who don't have the resources to pay for that assistance.

“The women who are celebrities have come to this understanding that their celebrity gives them a platform and an ability to draw attention to an issue, and they’ve been very intentional about how they use that to support low-income women who wouldn’t otherwise get that attention,” Tchen said. “I give them enormous credit for doing that.”

To see folks like Jessica Parker, Natalie Portman, Ava DuVernay and Kerry Washington speaking out about such injustices,Tchen added, “touches (people) in a different way.”

Following her exit from the White House, she served on the diversity and inclusion task force for the Recording Academy, which presents the Grammys, and an adviser to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

To assume her new post on Nov. 1, Tchen leave her current position as lead of the law firm Buckley LLP’s workplace culture practice.

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Tina Tchen heads task force probing music industry, Grammys

WHITE HOUSE PHOTO

Tina Tchen at her old job with Michelle and Barack Obama.

FACED WITH the perception of bias in its voting process, The Recording Academy™ is creating a  task force to examine issues of inclusion and diversity within the Academy, the broader music community and the Academy's premiere event, the Grammys.

Leading that task force will be Tina Tchen, chief of staff to former first lady Michelle Obama, who gaining the reputation as the go-to lawyer for the entertainment industry. when it comes to issues of equality and diversity.

As part of its charter, the task force will identify the various barriers and unconscious biases faced by underrepresented communities throughout the music industry and, specifically, across Recording Academy operations and policies. In an effort to determine pathways toward greater parity at every level of the organization, the task force will look specifically at Recording Academy governance, hiring and promotion practices, membership, awards, and telecast.

"The music industry faces numerous challenges—from combatting long-held biases to making sure women are represented and respected within the community," said Tchen. 

"This task force is an important initial step by the Recording Academy to demonstrate its commitment to tackling these challenges in a comprehensive way. I am honored to partner with them in this effort and look forward to working with members of the task force as we look to make the music industry a diverse and inclusive community for all."

This year's Grammy Awards was a prime example that something was amiss with the awards.

Of the eight awards presented during the telecast, only one – Best New Artist – was given to a woman, Alessia Cara; the full list of 84 categories, which included solo artists and bands, songwriting committees and liner-notes scribes, women didn't fare much better, percentage-wise.

Last month's awards show was not an aberration, as Monáe pointed out in a Tweet over the weekend, why have only 9.3 percent of the Grammy nominees in the past five years been women?

With a record of advocacy on behalf of women and girls, Ms. Tchen currently heads the Chicago office of the Buckley Sandler LLP law firm, where she is a partner and leader in advising companies on gender inequity, sexual harassment, and lack of diversity. 

Most recently, she played an integral role in spearheading the formation of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal support to victims of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse in the workplace. 

During her tenure in the White House, Tchen was the executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, established by President Barack Obama to ensure that the needs of women and girls would be accounted for in the development of all government agency policies and programs.

"In this moment, the Recording Academy can do more than reflect what currently exists; we can help lead the industry into becoming the inclusive music community we want it to be—a responsibility that the Board and I take seriously, " said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of the Recording Academy.

"Tina Tchen is an accomplished advocate for women and impact-oriented leader versed in convening disparate stakeholders for a common purpose. In addition, the fact that she lacks business ties to the music industry ensures her objectivity as Chair. We are honored to have her at the helm, guiding the Academy and our industry toward a greater good for everyone involved."

In the coming weeks, the Recording Academy will complete the formation of its task force. With an eye toward assembling a leadership group balanced in perspective and independent of bias, the task force is set to comprise music executives, music creators, academia, and experts in diversity in entertainment. The group is expected to deliver a series of recommendations to the Recording Academy in the months ahead. 

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