Los Angeles — Five programming and cable executives will be celebrated for their achievements in the areas of leadership,
education and advocacy, contributions to the telecommunications industry and support of Women in Cable Telecommunications
at the 19th annual LEA Awards gala, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (a new venue) on Thursday, Oct. 20. The emcee of the
event is actress Tatyana Ali.
The Southern California chapter of WICT said this year’s LEA winners — four outstanding individuals and a chapter board
member — were chosen by a committee comprised of industry leaders.
Jennifer Cavrikas, manager of affiliate marketing and ad sales at Fox Networks, is this year’s Woman to Watch.
Kate Neligan, vice president of on-demand and digital marketing at Lionsgate, is this year’s Advocate Leader.
Shabnam Dewji, vice president of operations for Time Warner Cable Media’s West Region, is Woman of the Year.
Lori Conkling, executive vice president of national accounts, field sales and Canada, at A&E Networks, is the Lifetime Achiever.
And the WICT Board Member of the Year is Helene Juceam, general manager of ad sales at Time Warner Cable Media.
“
The LEA Awards continues to be the premier ceremony in the Southern California telecommunications industry by celebrating
the spirit of embracing and inspiring women in the workplace,” Sophie Harris, WICT Southern California chapter president
and regional manager, distribution field sales for A&E Networks, said in a statement. “We are proud to honor these amazing
trailblazers who not only embody the epitome of success, but also encourage all of us through their leadership, education and
advocacy for women everywhere.”
As manager, affiliate marketing
and ad sales for Fox Networks,
Jennifer Cavrikas is responsible
for developing and implementing
marketing campaigns and promotions
in support of the launch,
distribution and contract renewal
of the 43 national and regional
programming services that
comprise the networks group.
She also oversees all of Fox Networks’
involvement in industry
trade shows, which most recently
included The Cable Show, the American Cable Association
Washington Summit and The Independent Show.
Before being promoted to her current role, Cavrikas served
as associate, affiliate marketing, responsible for executing
business-to-business and affiliate campaigns for seven national
television outlets: Fox Sports, BTN, Fox Soccer, Fox Soccer
Plus, Fuel, Fox College Sports and Fox Regional Sports
Networks (FSN). She coordinated large-scale and grassroots
events, multiplatform media campaigns, media buys and promotions
to secure the networks’ distribution and renewal.
Cavrikas managed the FSN Reading All-Stars program, a
nationwide public-service campaign that fosters interest in
reading and has benefited thousands of children in communities
across the United States.
Further, she was instrumental in the marketing that supported
the network launches of Big Ten Network in 2007 and
Fox Soccer Plus in 2010.
Cavrikas graduated from the University of California Santa
Cruz with a bachelor’s degree in American and British Literature.
She is a member of both WICT and the Cable & Telecommunications
Association for Marketing. In 2011, she earned a
PromaxBDA Gold Award for her work on the Fox Soccer Plus
launch campaign. She also was elected to CTAM’s Starwatch
in 2008-09, a program dedicated to rising industry stars.
Kate Neligan, Lionsgate’s vice president of on-demand and
digital marketing, brings 10 years of experience to the promotion
of the Digital Sales & Distribution group’s large slate
of new-release and catalog movies and television shows. She
handles all marketing campaigns,
media buying and partner
relationships for the studio’s
video-on-demand and digital
download business. She successfully
launched the first-ever
national 3D HD video-on-demand
campaign, as well as one
of the largest pre-theatrical VOD
releases.
Neligan also develops lucrative,
creative merchandising
and marketing plans with iTunes, Xbox, PlayStation, Comcast,
Time Warner Cable, DirecTV and other outlets. She is
most proud of the six charity promotions she conceptualized
and executed, including an “Inner PRECIOUSness” cable tour
with Dress for Success and WICT.
Prior to joining Lionsgate, she was marketing manager at
the American Film Institute’s Digital Content Lab, where she
handled marketing, publicity and event planning for the lab,
whose main function is to bring together technology mentors
and content creators to develop next-generation entertainment.
Before AFI, Neligan worked at In Demand in New York,
where she built relationships with VOD and pay-per-view sales
representatives, cable systems and studios. She also served as
the point person for VOD during the product’s initial launch.
Neligan is a graduate of Lafayette College in Pennsylvania
and the University of Santa Monica, where she earned her
master’s degree in spiritual psychology. She volunteers at USM
as a reader, participates as a WICT mentor and assists other
women in their career development as a life coach. She is also
the founder of a conscious media company called Mindful Media
Entertainment LLC and serves on the advisory board for
NowLive. She is a member of META, Women In Technology
International, CTAM and WICT.
Shabnam Dewji, as vice president
of operations for the West
Region at Time Warner Cable
Media, oversees advertisingsales
operations in the Los Angeles,
Palm Springs, San Diego
and Hawaii markets. This includes
technical and mastercontrol
operations for ad insertion,
IT and development
support for all media tools
and applications, traffic and
inventory management supporting
sales, and regional engineering support for
product implementation. Her scope of responsibility is
the core spot business and spans across digital multimedia
platforms.
Dewji has been in the cable industry for the last 28 years,
24 of those in the Los Angeles market. Her background is in
finance, with a degree from the London School of Accounting.
In 2010, she completed the NAMIC Executive Leadership
Development Program at UCLA’s Anderson School of
Business.
Throughout Dewji’s years in cable, she has witnessed
technological innovations, business workflow augmentation
and transformation in television ownership. She
works to ensure appropriate leadership skills are applied
during systems integrations, operational mergers and dynamic
implementation of processes and workflows.
Lori Conkling was named executive
vice president, distribution,
of Lifetime Networks
in March 2008. After Lifetime’s
acquisition by A&E Networks
in 2009, she was named
its executive vice president, national
accounts, field sales and
Canada.
Conkling is responsible for
supervising A&E Networks’
distribution strategy across
multiple platforms for the
company’s 10 networks, including A&E, History, Lifetime
Television and Lifetime Movie Network. She also directly
oversees field sales and national accounts in the U.S.
and Canada.
Among her achievements since joining the company,
Conkling has grown Lifetime Movie Network to reach 81
million U.S. subscribers, making it one of cable’s fastestgrowing
Nielsen-rated channels. She was part of Multichannel
News’ Wonder Women Class of 2011.
Conkling joined Lifetime from Disney and ESPN Media
Networks, where she had served since 2004 as vice president,
national accounts. While there, she was responsible
for executing complex, multi-product national distribution
deals for linear channels, VOD and pay-per-view
services, broadband products and interactive television
applications. She negotiated on behalf of Disney, ESPN,
ABC and ABC News, among others. She rose to this position
after having served as director, national accounts for
ABC Cable Networks Group.
Prior to joining Disney and ESPN Media Networks, Conkling
worked in the Media & Entertainment practice at Accenture
(formerly Andersen Consulting), specializing in
analyzing and developing corporate strategies for publishing,
film and telecommunications companies.
Helene Juceam began her career in cable media in 2005
as a local sales manager with Time Warner Cable Media
in California’s San Fernando Valley. In less than two years,
she distinguished herself as major account director in Los
Angeles and now serves as one
of three general managers in
the L.A. market. She is responsible
for attainment of sales
goals, leadership and mentoring
for a multi-office sales division
and production team.
Juceam has spent her entire
professional career in media
sales, starting out as a sales assistant
at Katz Radio, followed
by a successful tenure as an account
executive at the Los Angeles
Daily News. In 1991, she
joined on-screen advertising company National Cinema
Network as an account executive. Within a year, she was
promoted to executive director, responsible for the Western
Region. In 1998, she was promoted to vice president
of sales for the Western United States and for seven years
was in charge of sales and operations for markets spanning
from Missouri to Hawaii.
Juceam, who joined WICT in 2007, served on its board
of the directors for the past two years and is currently reservation
chair. In addition to serving as co-chair for the
Mentoring Teas in 2010 and 2011, she volunteers for a variety
of activities and events.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in communications
from California State University at Northridge and is an
alumnus of the Alpha Phi sorority.
