As Vice President, Business Affairs for Scripps Networks, LLC, Rhonda Powell leads the Business Affairs team serving Food Network, one of Scripps most-popular and widely-distributed programming networks. In her role, Ms. Powell assists in the development and implementation of Food Network’s strategic and tactical plans relating to talent, production and cultivation of new business opportunities.
Ms. Powell joined Scripps Networks in late 2004 as Director, Legal Affairs, where she played a vital role in Scripps Networks’ successful completion of groundbreaking deals in its Business Development unit, including a trademark licensing agreement with Kohl’s Department Stores for the manufacture and sale of Food Network-branded merchandise and the development of a strategic relationship with Cooking.com. In this capacity, Rhonda’s also made significant contributions to the company’s Information Technology unit — negotiating agreements and assisting the unit in developing internal policies in connection with operating initiatives designed to upgrade and expand the company’s capabilities for its online properties and operations.
Ms. Powell’s 15-year legal career began with 8 years of law firm practice in corporate transactional and intellectual property law. After acting as legal counsel to the Times Square BID in connection with New York City’s ground-breaking New Year’s Eve celebration (December 31,1999), for which she was featured in the New York Law Journal, Ms. Powell left law firm practice in 2000 to join the legal department of Reuters America Inc. During her four year tenure at Reuters, Ms. Powell was responsible for managing the company’s non-standard transactional agreements and commercial relationships relating to the licensing of data and news, strategic relationships, acquisitions, procurement and outsourcing.
Ms. Powell is a native of Mount Vernon, New York and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she received summa honors in her major. She is also a graduate of The University of Michigan School of Law, where she was named a Clarence Darrow Merit Scholar. A member of both Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) and National Association of Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC), Ms. Powell has taken an active role in Scripps Networks’ efforts to celebrate and enhance diversity in the workplace and workforce by serving on the company’s Diversity Task Force. Ms. Powell is also active and interested in her community – she serves on the executive board of her local chapter of Jack and Jill of America, Inc., teaches Sunday school at her church, is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and is a mentor to several young women and men throughout the New York metropolitan area, including high school, college and law school students, as well as junior lawyers.