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April 16-17, 2018
Los Angeles, CA

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Michelle Kydd Lee

Chief Innovation Officer, CAA

Michelle Kydd Lee is the Chief Innovation Officer and member of the Management Committee at leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). In this role, she provides strategic leadership that builds upon the agency’s renowned culture of collaboration, excellence, and client service, and crafts state-of-the-art approaches to empower, develop, and inspire employees across the company. This includes creating growth opportunities for CAA’s people and culture, inside and outside the agency.

 

Kydd Lee has long been a driving force for the agency’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, helping to establish its short- and long-term strategies to ensure a more equitable workplace. She has also been steadfast in helping to create meaningful change in the industry at large, and is a founding member of the TIME’S UP movement, which, to date, has raised more than $21 million from 20,000 donors across 80 countries to help survivors. 

 

She was integral in the ideation and execution of CAA AMPLIFY, an invitation-only event convening multicultural artists and leaders from entertainment, sports, media, corporate brand marketing, and technology to accelerate the growth, value, and visibility of diversity in business.  Launched in June 2017, CAA AMPLIFY explored a variety of topics, including leadership, disruption and opportunity, technology, and the creative process, as well as criminal justice reform, civil rights, and immigration.  The agency will unveil its second annual CAA AMPLIFY event this summer.

 

In 1995, Kydd Lee founded the CAA Foundation, which uses the resources of the entertainment and sports communities to create positive social change. Kydd Lee, who directed the CAA Foundation until 2015, also personally serves as a consultant to clients, executives, and corporations on their philanthropic and pro-social initiatives, including Academy Award-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, HE NAMED ME MALALA, and President Obama’s DNC introductory film), Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS, the One for One® company, and Doc Rivers, providing counsel on their pro-social initiatives.  Additionally, her clients include leaders in politics and policy, including Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, and Kamala Harris, among others.

 

Kydd Lee’s footprint extends outside entertainment community in deep and meaningful ways.  She worked closely with the Obama administration on issues at the intersection of culture and public policy, and is a founding member of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In organization.  She has served on numerous charitable organization boards and currently sits on the Advisory Board for MIT Media Lab and Communities In Schools of Los Angeles and Board of Directors for GOOD/Upworthy.  She is a member of the 2009 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute; was named to Adweek’s Disruptors list, celebrating top female leaders in media; and is a MAKER’S WOMAN honoree. 

Born, raised, and having received a public education in rural Maine, the married mother of two boys lives in Santa Monica Canyon. She is experiencing great humility while learning to play the ukulele.

Tuesday, April 17

Bold Conversations About Gender and Diversity in the Time’s Up Era

Christy Haubegger, Agent, CAA
Lisa Joseph-Metelus, Executive, CAA Sports
Michelle Kydd Lee, Chief Innovation Officer, CAA