Setting New Standards for Hair and Makeup Equity
Progress is being made in the fight for on-set hair and makeup equity, however there’s still plenty of work ahead. Black actors still find themselves shouldering the emotional, physical and financial burden when qualified hair and makeup professionals are not made available to them. The good news? Groups like SAG-AFTRA’s Hair and Makeup Equity Work Group and Black Beauty Roster are charging ahead to create systemic change and help build a pipeline of diverse talent. Join our conversation and learn from the front lines how creating an equitable work environment is good for business.
Speakers
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Michaela Angela DavisImage Activist and Creator & Executive Producer, The Hair Tales, on OWN and HULUMichaela angela Davis is a writer, creative director, producer and image activist focusing on the intersections of gender, race, fashion, culture, beauty, and identity. She is the creator and executive producer of HULU’s The Hair Tales, a dynamic six part docu-series celebrating Black women’s identity, beauty, culture and humanity, uniquely expressed through the stories in hair featuring Ayanna Pressley, CHIKA, Marsai Martin, Chlöe Bailey and fellow executive producers Tracee Ellis Ross and Oprah Winfrey. Davis collaborated with Mariah Carey on “The Meaning of Mariah Carey” a memoir of her identity – an instant #1 New York Times Bestseller.
She has spoken globally and has been a cultural contributor and writer for The Atlantic, Allure, CNN, MSNBC, and The BBC. Her most recent project is another collaboration with Mariah Carey – a children’s book titled “The Christmas Princess” which is available now everywhere books are sold.
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Maude OkrahCo-founder & CEO, Black Beauty RosterMaude Okrah is an entrepreneur who is passionate about bringing solutions to underserved minority markets. She has over 10 years of experience working in strategy with startups and Fortune 500 companies.
She is co-founder and CEO of BBR (Black Beauty Roster). Black Beauty Roster is a digital DE&I platform that connects the TV, Film & Editorial world with hairstylists and makeup artists trained in textured hair and darker complexions while also increasing education around textured hair and darker complexions to the industry at large. BBR has worked with industry leading companies like Warner Bros Discovery, Walt Disney, and L’Oreal. She has been featured in Forbes, Inc, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Allure,Insider and more for BBR’s work to bring more equity and opportunity into the industry.
She received the Women’s Ceiling Crashers award from AT&T. She has been appointed Commissioner for DC’s Commission on Fashion Arts and Beauty and also is a member of the Textured Hair Coalition. Maude is Ghanian American and originally from Boston, MA. She is an alumnus of Emerson College.
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Yvette UrbinaVice President, Content, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, North America, Warner Bros. DiscoveryYvette Urbina is currently Vice President, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion – Pipeline and Content at Warner Bros. Discovery. In her current role, she acts as the bridge between the programs and content at the core of the company’s mission to build a more inclusive and innovative industry. Her focus is identifying diverse talent opportunities across the enterprise through cross-divisional relationships and collaboration that result in greater equity and inclusion
for all content. Maintaining centralized resources and providing content creators greater tools and ability to access new and established diverse voices via our Global Access Programs is a priority, while tracking the progress throughout the ranks of creative
talent across all Warner Bros. Discovery business units allow for ongoing assessment and improvement. Yvette is a proven programming leader with a producer background—the right mix of creativity and business, and a driving force behind iconic series like The O.C., That ’70s Show and King of the Hill as well as the Emmy Award-winning live-action Nickelodeon comedy, Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn.
Urbina most recently served as Vice President, Nickelodeon Current Series and Development. In this role, she was a member of the executive leadership team that sustained Nickelodeon’s position as the number one rated, ad-supported, basic cable network from 2011-2019.
Her early start at Nickelodeon included the management of Nick at Nite’s first forays into original scripted programming with the hit half-hour comedy Instant Mom, starring Tia Mowry-Hardrict, which also aired on TVLand. She also oversaw the production of the hour-long drama Hollywood Heights, which was adapted from the telenovela Alcanzar una Estrella.
Urbina was recruited in 2009 by Oscar-nominated actor, director, and producer Salma Hayek to join her production company, Ventanarosa Productions as the Vice President of Television Development. While there, she created Latino-culture and Spanish-language comedy and drama series concepts for an exclusive relationship with ABC Studios.
Prior to her work with Ventanarosa, Urbina co-produced the independent feature Beneath the Dark, which premiered at SXSW and was purchased by IFC.
Her career trajectory included working in programming at Fox. As she advanced into the role of Director of Drama Development, she developed content with noted writers and producers and was key in moving the network from #4 to the most-watched network in the A18-49 market for 3 consecutive years.
Urbina began her work in the entertainment business in the mailroom of a Hollywood talent agency and worked her way up to become a voice-over agent.
She serves on the board of Los Angeles Team Mentoring, an organization that guides middle school students growing up in challenging urban environments, and while she recently stepped down from the board of Colour Entertainment, a group dedicated to providing dynamic opportunities to network with senior level executives as they navigate the media landscape, she remains actively involved
Urbina was honored in 2022 with an Imagen Latino in Media Award. She has served on the board of Los Angeles Team Mentoring since 2014. Urbina is a Los Angeles native and has called downtown L.A. home for over twelve years.
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Duncan Crabtree-IrelandSAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief NegotiatorDuncan Crabtree-Ireland is the National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator of SAG-AFTRA. In this capacity, he oversees the world’s largest and most influential entertainment union, comprised of more than 160,000 members worldwide who work in film, television, broadcast news, commercials, music, video games and more.
Crabtree-Ireland has played a critical role in many of SAG-AFTRA’s signature achievements over the past two decades, both in his current role and prior to that as long-time chief operating officer and general counsel. Notably, he was a key participant in the successful merger between SAG and AFTRA in 2012, and serves as the principal architect of SAG-AFTRA’s successful COVID safety response and return-to-work initiatives. Crabtree-Ireland is a strategic and creative lead negotiator, and has personally led or overseen negotiations for SAG-AFTRA’s Commercials, Music, Network Code, and Netflix contracts, among others.
Crabtree-Ireland is bilingual in English and Spanish, and has been the lead negotiator for SAG-AFTRA’s contract with the Telemundo network for Spanish language productions since its inception, oversees the union’s bilingual initiative, and is a co-host of the SAG-AFTRA podcast en Español.
Crabtree-Ireland formerly served as a criminal prosecutor for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office and has received numerous awards for his work and service throughout his career, including the Peggy Browning Award, the Corporate Counsel Award from the Los Angeles Business Journal, the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Samuel L. Williams Outstanding Trustee Award, the Profiles in Diversity Award from the Association of Corporate Counsel and the California Minority Counsel Project, the Co-President’s Award from the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Bar Association, and the Labor Counsel of the Year award from the Association of Media & Entertainment Counsel. In 2019, he received the SAG-AFTRA George Heller Memorial Award for extraordinary service to SAG-AFTRA and its members.
He is the chair of the board of trustees of the SAG-AFTRA & Industry Sound Recordings Distribution Fund, the co-chair of the board of trustees of the AFM & SAG-AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund, a member of the boards of the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan, SAG-Producers Pension Plan, the AFTRA Retirement Fund, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly known as The Actors Fund), and SoundExchange, and is a delegate to the International Federation of Actors where he serves as convenor of its North America and English Speaking groups and co-convenor of its Global Diversity Working Group. He served as a longtime adjunct professor at the University of Southern California Law School. He is a past chair of the Conference of California Bar Associations, a past treasurer of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, a past co-president of the LGBTQ Bar Association of Los Angeles, and has served by appointment as a judge pro tem of the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Previously, Crabtree-Ireland served as Screen Actors Guild’s deputy national executive director.
Crabtree-Ireland received his Bachelor of Science in foreign service with a concentration in international relations, law, and organization from Georgetown University and his Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Davis, School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of Barristers.
Crabtree-Ireland lives in Los Angeles with his husband, John, and their five children.