CBS Corporation

JOSIE THOMAS Senior Vice President & Chief Diversity Officer, CBS Corporation

Josie Thomas is Senior Vice President & Chief Diversity Officer, CBS Corporation.  She reports to Leslie Moonves, President & Chief Executive Officer, CBS Corporation.

Thomas works to enhance the Company's record of diversity both inside and outside the organization. Working with senior executives from all areas of CBS, she creates initiatives designed to improve outreach to diverse vendors, professional service suppliers, managers, national advocacy groups and talent in front of and behind the camera.  In August 2003, she launched the CBS Diversity Institute adding a diversity Writers Mentoring Program and Directing Initiative to the previously launched diversity focused Actor Showcases and nationwide Workshops which later expanded to include Daytime initiatives.

Thomas had been Vice President, Business Affairs, CBS News, since 1995.  Prior to that, she served as Director of Business Affairs, CBS News (1989-95) and director of legal affairs for New York-based Trans World International, where she managed the legal aspects of program distribution, event broadcasting and production related contracts (1987-89).

From 1986 to 1987, she was Broadcast Counsel for the Law Department of CBS Inc., where she worked with the Entertainment, Sports and News divisions of the Company on all aspects of structuring development, employment and distribution agreements.  She also advised those divisions on copyright and trademark matters.  She began her career as a litigation associate at Anderson, Russell, Kill and Olick and was later associated with Weiss, Dawid, Fross, Zelnick & Lehrman.

Thomas is a graduate of Harvard College (B.A., cum laude, history), Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley (J.D.) and a member of the New York State Bar.  She is the Chair of the Advisory Board for the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies.  She is a member of the Board of  Visitors of the John H. Johnson School of Communications at Howard University, a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Diversity Committee and was a member of the NAACP Centennial Task Force Planning Committee. Currently she serves on the NAACP Spingarn Award Committee where she served as Chair in 2010. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Robey Theatre Company and the National Association of Latino Independent Producers. In 2006, she was the recipient of the first New York Women’s Chamber of Commerce Women of Excellence Award in Corporate Diversity.  She was named 2011 Trendsetter by the American Advertising Federation - Diversity and Mosaic Ad Color Awards.  In 2012, Thomas was honored as an exceptional woman executive in Profiles In Diversity Journal's "11th Annual Women Worth Watching" issue and was featured in Savoy Magazine's 2012 Fall issue featuring the "Top Influential Women in Corporate America.