Deborah Dugan | |
|---|---|
| Known for | Former president and CEO of The Recording Academy Former Chief Executive Officer of (RED) |
| Title | CEO of Beyond Type 1 |
| Term | 2019–2020 |
| Predecessor | Neil Portnow |
| Successor | Harvey Mason Jr. (interim) |
| Children | 3 |
Deborah Dugan is an American executive, social impact strategist, and nonprofit leader known for her work in corporate entertainment and philanthropy. She is the CEO of diabetes nonprofit Beyond Type 1. Dugan was the first female president and CEO of the Recording Academy, which presents the Grammy Awards, in 2019 and 2020. She held senior leadership roles as the CEO of (RED) and President of Disney Publishing Worldwide as well as Executive Vice President at EMI/Angel Records.
Awarded PTTOW!'s Nelson Mandela Changemaker Award, Dugan has contributed to the Huffington Post and Forbes.com and appeared on Mad Money with Jim Cramer, PBS News Hour, and NPR's All Things Considered , among other outlets. Dugan has been the co-chair of the storytelling nonprofit the Moth since 2008.
Dugan grew up on Long Island and in Florida. Her father was Thomas Dugan, who worked for a time in the U.S. Justice Department and served as inspector general of the Peace Corps under Sargent Shriver, and her mother was a homemaker. Thomas died when she was six, and she worked from a young age. She attended the University of Florida, majoring in education, making the dean's list, and graduated. She then went to and graduated from the University of Utah Law School. [1] [2] Dugan became a corporate attorney on Wall Street [3] [4] while doing pro-bono work for Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (VLA). [1]
From leading VLA, Dugan transitioned to startup SBK Records, where she worked with artists like Belgian electronics group Technotronic, Vanilla Ice, Wilson Phillips, and Tracy Chapman. [5] When the company merged with EMI/Capitol Records, she became its executive vice president adding to her roster musicians like Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Joan Baez. [1] [6] She then worked for Disney Publishing Worldwide for eight years, becoming its president in 2002, [3] [7] [2] where she oversaw 275 magazines, including Discover and Disney Magazine, [8] and published more than 4,000 new books, generating $1.8 billion in global retail sales. [6]
Dugan then worked for British media company Entertainment Rights as president and CEO of the North America division from 2007 to 2009, [6] restructuring it and growing its biggest content work, one year, 27 percent. [2] She was senior advisor to the Tribeca Enterprises Board from 2009 to 2011, where she evaluated and executed revenue streams for Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal's company and rebranded its school. [2]
In 2011, Dugan started work as CEO of (RED), co-founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver [1] after interviewing for a job that wasn't the right fit. [9] The nonprofit aims to enlist the help of private companies and citizens in the global fight to eradicate AIDS [10] in Sub-Saharan Africa [11] (it then tasked itself to also combat the effects of COVID-19). [12] Dugan rearranged her life to travel to Africa, [1] among other things, and, under her tenure, (RED) began to partner with Coca-Cola, Salesforce, Bank of America, [13] Vespa, [9] Snapchat, Nickelodeon, Moschino, Jeremy Scott, [14] Latin America's telecommunications companies Claro and Telcel, and German multinational SAP, among others. [10] Notable campaigns under Dugan also include the Super Bowl, Jimmy Kimmel Live , Beats by Dre, Starbucks, and Amazon. During this time the organization, with a team of 25 in New York, reached $660 million for the Global Fund [9] and impacted the lives of more than 110 million.
From 2011 to 2015, Dugan also contributed to Huffington Post, in 2017 and 2018, to Forbes.com. [7] [15] In 2017 she was awarded PTTOW!'s Nelson Mandela Changemaker Award. [16] [17]
In response to the outrage over the low female representation at the 2018 Grammys and then-CEO/President Neil Portnow's comment that women musicians needed to "step up" in order to achieve parity, [18] an 18-person task force led by Time's Up co-founder Tina Tchen was created to study the Recording Academy's problems and make recommendations. [3] From 2013 to 2018, 9.3 percent of the nominees in the five major Grammy Awards categories were women. [19] After a search, in May 2019, its board of trustees confirmed that Dugan would be its next president and CEO. She began her tenure in August 2019, succeeding Portnow, becoming the first woman president of the $60M nonprofit, [18] [20] [21] and her contract was for three years. [22]
In April 2018, 20 percent of the Recording Academy's voting members identified as women, Dugan aimed to double female voters by 2025. [23]
On January 16, 2020, Dugan was relieved of her duties and placed on administrative leave, accused of bullying her assistant, whom she inherited from Portnow. [22] The assistant made a leave of absence, [24] and Recording Academy Chairman Harvey Mason Jr., whom had been working with Dugan, [23] took over as interim president and CEO. [25] In response, Dugan made claims that the organization was complicit in corruption, citing "voting irregularities, financial mismanagement, 'exorbitant and unnecessary' legal bills, and conflicts of interest involving members of the academy's board, executive committee and outside lawyers". [24] [26] On March 2, 2020, the Recording Academy announced that it had officially fired her. A letter was sent to its members informing them of the action taken by its board of trustees. [27] [28] The organization also tightened their conflict of interest rules that June. [29]
In April 2021, the Recording Academy eliminated its secret voting committees that had existed for 28 years. [30] Within two months, it had settled with Dugan for an undisclosed amount. [31]
In April 2022, she was named CEO of diabetes nonprofit Beyond Type 1 [32] cofounded by singer Nick Jonas and Juliet de Baubigny. [4]
Dugan is on the board of the Moth, [33] co-chairing it since 2008, [2] [34] and the London-and-Nairobi-based creative nonprofit Girl Effect. [35] [36] She is also on the board of advisors of CITYarts. [37]
Dugan is a member of the Association of American Publishers, theMPA – The Association of Magazine Media, and the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. [2]