BreakThrough - Women. Tech. Leadership

Deanna Martin Mackey is president of the Public Television Major Market Group (PTMMG), a consortium of the 40 largest PBS member stations in the U.S. Mackey focuses her time on leadership/culture, revenue generation, audience development and digital on behalf of the group as well national partnerships and system leadership activities. Previously, Mackey worked for 25 years at KPBS, San Diego, serving as COO in her final six years at the station. Mackey is credited with spearheading KPBS.org as a third content platform and creating KPBS’ converged newsroom.

In 2015, Mackey co-founded Public Media Women in Leadership, to provide mentorship/training for women in her industry and address issues of gender inequality in public media. Mackey serves as a Girl Scout troop leader for 17 high school girls and spent 10 years in board governance for Girl Scouts San Diego. Mackey was recently elected to the board of directors of Parks,California. The organization’s mission is to make California state parks and public lands welcoming, inclusive and climate resilient spaces to truly serve all Californians, particularly underserved communities. In 2018 Mackey received the Hera Heroine Leadership Award from Hera Hub, workspace for women. In 2014 Mackey was named a YWCA Tribute to Women & Industry (TWIN) honoree for her work mentoring women at KPBS and via the Girl Scouts. She was named Outstanding Alumnus from SDSU’s Daily Aztec newspaper the same year and in 2010 was named one of five “Women who Move the City” by San Diego Magazine.

Prior to working at KPBS, Mackey was a writer and editor for several San Diego-based publications. She spent her early years in journalism as a radio news writer. Mackey earned her Bachelor of Arts from San Diego State University with a double major in journalism and political science. She lives in San Diego and is married to Christopher Ingalls. She and her husband have five children between them, one granddaughter, and one lovely Lab.

Asha Saxena is the Founder and CEO of Women Leaders in Data and AI (WLDA), an exclusive mastermind group for women leaders in Data and AI, helping them succeed both personally and professionally. She is also a professor at Columbia University in NYC, teaching graduate students healthcare consulting and entrepreneurship, and is a partner with CEO International where she coaches CXO leaders.

As a serial entrepreneur, she has built and sold three successful businesses. Most recently, she has served as CEO and Chairperson of Future Technologies Inc., a data management firm that provided warehousing, analytics, and intelligence services. She was also the CEO and Chief Innovation Officer of ACULYST, which provided best-in-class healthcare analytics services through a pre-built model that integrates clinical, financial, and operational data. Asha has served on a number of for-profit and nonprofit boards and is a contributor and international speaker on a variety of technology, data, AI, and women-related issues.

Contact Asha about speaking at your next event or conference. Follow Asha and Future Technologies at Twitter, LinkedIn

As the Director of Digital & Social Content Innovation at GBH, Tory Starr works with the station’s production units to inform and develop content strategies on social and emerging platforms. Since 2018, she has led GBH’s Emerging Platforms initiative to pilot original programming and instill audience-first content development practices throughout the station. Starr has been at GBH since 2009 in roles spanning production, social media and digital video. In 2019, she completed the Media Transformation Challenge fellowship at Harvard’s Kennedy School that taught a performance-driven approach to digital change in media organizations.

Dr. Salandra Bowman is the Chief Learning Officer. In this role, Dr. Bowman is responsible for educator and community-based training and professional development, instructional design and the educational resources provided through SCETV’s premier educational website, KnowItAll.org. She will serve as the lead liaison to the network’s Content division as it pertains to educational (PreK-12) productions, community engagement efforts and the integration of learning activities into general audience productions.

Since joining the team at SCETV in 2019, Dr. Bowman has led the implementation of multiple new initiatives, including 21st Century Learners Week, Ready to Learn Engagement, At-Home Learning and the SCETV Kids Club. She has produced multiple projects specific to her passions around youth engagement and equity and access in education, including SOLHOT: Guideposts for Black Girlhood Celebration and Conversations with Crescent. Dr. Bowman was recently appointed to the PBS Children’s Media and Education Advisory Council.

She received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of South Carolina, her master’s degree in African American and African Studies from The Ohio State University and her doctorate in Educational Foundations from the University of South Carolina.

Kristin joined Twin Cities PBS (TPT) in 2001 to lead educational outreach and public relations for DragonflyTV, an Emmy Award-winning national PBS children’s science series. Her roles within TPT have since varied, but have held a distinct emphasis on science, health, history, gender equity and cultural responsiveness. She has developed, contributed to and/or led projects supported by the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Institutes of Health, and NASA, as well as multiple corporations and foundations. While Kristin focused on multiple science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) projects, such as SciGirls and When Whales Walked: Journeys in Deep Time, she has developed and led outreach, engagement and promotion on many of TPT’s award-winning general audience projects. These include Depression: Out of the Shadows, The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer’s; The New Medicine, FAT: What No One Is Telling You, Slavery by Another Name, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal . Kristin fosters connections with diverse stakeholders, including content experts, researchers, third-party evaluators, educators, sponsors, policymakers and other thought leaders, and collaborates with these partners to share lifelong learning with children, families and educators nationwide. She holds a BA from Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and an MA from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.