Laurie Orlando — Senior Vice President of Talent Development & Planning at ESPN

Ms. Laurie Orlando has been Senior Vice President of Talent Development & Planning at ESPN, Inc. since joining in January 2008. Ms. Orlando oversees ESPN's Talent Office and relationships with the on-air personalities who represent the ESPN brand across all multimedia platforms. She is focused on five primary areas ' identification and recruitment of new talent; negotiation and facilitation of contracts; establishing development, communication, coaching and feedback processes; strategic and succession planning for the business; and the booking of guests for all shows on the networks. She works hand-in-hand with ESPN's studio, event, news, international, radio, new media, ESPN.com, content development and Magazine management teams. This is the second ESPN stint for Ms. Orlando , who worked for ESPN Classic as a coordinating producer in 1999. In her earlier role, Ms. Orlando oversaw the development, supervision and execution of all original, documentary and long-form programming, including the Sweet Science documentary series and other critically-acclaimed original programs. Prior to returning to ESPN in 2008, Ms. Orlando was the senior vice president, executive producer for MSG & Fox Sports New York from September 2006 to December 2007), and before that she spent nearly five years from November 2002 to August 2006 at College Sports Television (CSTV, now CBS Sports Network) as vice president of programming, original programming and development and vice president of remote & feature production. Ms. Orlando has held significant production and programming roles at multiple networks during her career, and she has developed a reputation throughout the industry as a creative executive who thrives on the challenge of building networks from their inception, having played an integral role in start-up teams that launched five networks ' The Comedy Channel (1989), Classic Sports Network (1994), Oxygen Media (1999), CSTV (2003), and The Mtn (2006), all of which remain on the air in some form. Ms. Orlando has exhibited a passion for sports throughout her professional career, beginning with her early experience as a freelance producer for Showtime's Championship Boxing coverage from January 1991 to July 1996. She joined Classic Sports Network in 1996 as a coordinating producer responsible for development and execution of the network's boxing programming and original programming, and she also supervised original studio production for all sports genres. Following ESPN Classic, Ms. Orlando was named the supervising producer for Oxygen Sports, where she was responsible for the highly acclaimed twice-weekly one-hour original women's sports program, as well as a series of 13 sports biographies and the network's first season of WNBA games. She also directed production of programming on a global basis. She began her career in television in 1980, serving as a news intern with WRGB TV in Albany, N.Y. In 1986 she interned on Late Night With David Letterman before moving onto positions with Showtime and HBO's Comedy Channel. Ms. Orlando is a member of the Advisory Board for the Syracuse University School of Sport Management and an alumni advisor for students at the Newhouse School; and a member of the Advisory Board for Global Girl Media. She is also a member of both Women in Cable Television (WICT) and Women in Sports and Events (WISE). Ms. Orlando graduated from Syracuse with a Bachelor of Science degree in International Relations, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Television and Film Writing from the University's Newhouse School of Public Communications.