Moving Up

Rosemary Kilkenny, Esq.

Rosemary Kilkenny, Esq., was appointed vice president for institutional diversity and equity, a newly created position at Georgetown Univer-sity. She will work with senior administrators, faculty, staff and students to design, implement and monitor policies and programs that promote diversity, inclusiveness and equity for students, faculty and staff, including education, training, counseling, outreach and retention efforts. The vice president will also oversee the Office of Affirmative Action Programs. Kilkenny earned her law degree at Georgetown University Law Center, and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Kent State University. She previously was director of affirmative action programs at the State University of New York at Albany.

Brian Offutt

Brian Offutt will oversee the Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products (NVCP) home entertainment, publishing and record business in his new role as senior vice president, entertainment products. He will manage the home video-DVD, publishing and music businesses for Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Noggin and The N, as well as the home video-DVD, book publishing and videogame businesses for Comedy Central, Spike TV and TV Land and the book publishing business of Paramount—all networks and a movie studio within the Viacom family. Prior to this appointment, Offutt was head of the Los Angeles office of Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products.

Before joining NVCP in January 2005, Offutt was chief operating officer of Broadway Video Entertain-ment, a leading independent television and film production company founded by “Saturday Night Live” creator, Lorne Michaels.
Offutt earned his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Larry Waters

Larry Waters was named senior director of multicultural relations at the Miller Brewing Co. Waters, who has been with the company since 1979, has held numerous positions in the sales and marketing departments, including sports marketing manager, regional retail sales manager and chain account manager. He is a member of several civic and business organizations, among them the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Corporate Advisory Council, the Milwaukee Urban League, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Hansberry-Sands Theatre and the National United Merchants Beverage Ass-ociation Corporate Advisory Panel. Waters received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan.

Andrea Fant-Hobbs
Andrea Fant-Hobbs was appointed vice president of brand management for Verizon. Fant-Hobbs will develop and execute all branding, corporate advertising, media planning and buying, as well as sponsorship activities, designed to build and extend the Verizon brand. Previously, Fant-Hobbs was vice president and account director for Vigilante, where she managed the Manhattan-based advertising agency’s largest client, General Motors. She was principal architect of the multimillion-dollar Oprah Winfrey deal for the launch of GM’s Pontiac G6 on the top-secret “Wildest Dreams” season premiere, where each member of the audience of school teachers got a free car. In 2004, Fant-Hobbs received a 25 Influential Black Women in Business award from The Network Journal.

Sheryl Hilliard Tucker
Sheryl Hilliard Tucker was appointed to the newly created post of executive editor of Time Inc. Tucker’s new responsibilities come just six months after her appointment to the editor at large position, assisting magazines in need of a turnaround. She is currently engaged in such a project as acting deputy editor of Health magazine. Tucker will focus on talent management and will also be responsible for implementing a formal and ongoing audit of content diversity in all of the titles. Prior to her editor at large duties, Tucker was executive editor of Money magazine. Before joining Time Inc., she was vice president and editor in chief at Black Enterprise magazine.

Lawrence Jackson
Lawrence Jackson was promoted to president and chief executive officer of the global procurement division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. He previously was executive vice president of the retailer’s people division, responsible for all human resources functions for the world’s largest private work force. Wal-Mart's global procurement division has purchasing offices in 28 countries around the world. Jackson joined Wal-Mart in 2004 from Dollar General Corp., where he was president and chief operating officer. He has also worked for Safeway Inc. and PepsiCo.

Lewis Williams
Lewis Williams was named chief creative officer for Burrell Communications. Williams, who worked at Burrell during the 1980s as associate creative director, spent the last 15 years at Leo Burnett in Chicago, most recently as senior vice president-creative director. Williams has worked on brands such as Disney World, McDonald’s, Budweiser, Miller Lite, Procter & Gamble and the U.S. Army. At Burnett, Williams created a number of notable campaigns, many of them outside the traditional advertising arena, among them the “Allstate: Harnessing the Energy Around March Madness” 3-on-3 alumni classic basketball tournaments in New York, Chicago, Charlotte and San Francisco, and work for the Ad Council Freedom Center, which encourages Americans to speak out against injustice.