I’m sometimes accused by those who seem to not look past the first sentence of a musing of being somewhat misognyistic and male-biased. Far from it. I’ve been blessed through my career with the presence of some truly talented and inspiring female colleagues, subordinates and superiors. That’s all the more reason that when I encounter one who was clearly given their responsibilities because of some sort of perceived quota, I’m more quick to recognize it and call it out.
And the fact that I have known so many people–including a whole lot of men–who have been exemplary executives and amazing human beings, many of which who became personal friends, that sprung from the tree of Bonnie Hammer makes me all the more wistful that this not wholly unexpected news came down late last week, including from DEADLINE’s Peter White:
Bonnie Hammer’s long tenure at NBCUniversal is coming to an end. The exec, who is currently Vice Chairman, NBCUniversal, a “strategic advisor” role, is set to exit the company after the end of her current contract. It is unrelated to the corporate shake-up that happened this week that saw a slew of cable networks spun-off into a new company, leaving NBC, Peacock and Bravo under the NBCU umbrella.
VARIETY’s Brian Steinberg rattled off a few of her more significant accomplishments in his article:
(A) legendary TV executive who has had a hand in popular programs ranging from “This Old House” and “Zoom” to “Monk” and “Mr. Robot”…Hammer has been with NBCU since 2004, when Universal Television, once part of Barry Diller’s entertainment empire, merged with the NBC portfolio. In all, she has spent around 50 years in the TV business, also working for Lifetime and Boston’s public-TV outlet WGBH.
But it’s the “Early Life” section of her Wikipedia profile that has me being such an unapolegtic fan of hers:
Born to a Jewish family[2][3] in 1950,[4] Bonnie Hammer was raised in Queens, New York, the youngest of three children. Hammer’s mother was a full-time mom; her dad, a Russian immigrant, started his own pen company. Intending to become a photojournalist, Hammer enrolled at Boston University College of Communication, earning a bachelor’s degree in communications in 1971 and later a master’s degree in Media Technology from the Boston University School of Education in 1975.
We’re from the same borough (although I strongly suspect her neighborhood was slightly more upscale). She went to the school I wanted desperately to go to. And she got her pedigree from arguably the best PBS station in the country of that era, one where several other of its alumni later became my comrades-in-arms when we all collectively migrated from the East Coast at the same time and if nothing else I learned first hand it turned out some darn menchy partiers.
While this may not have been directly related to Comcast’s decision to officially spin off the networks she fostered, the fact that they are now considered disposable chattle speaks volumes to to why the timing of her actual departure is apropos. But truth be told, when she was elevated to vice chairman in 2020, her golden parachute descent essentially had begun. She’s been conspicously silent and essentially out of the limelight that she once dominated at the same time when her peers and one-time underlings undermined the smart and informed choices she made that made USA a true destination, Syfy a place where more than just science fiction could live long and prosper, and Bravo populist enough to survive even this purge.
But in that time she put her thoughts and experiences to pen and paper (or the digital equivalent) and turned out a work that’s as impressive and inspiring a work as she has been an executive. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Lacey Rose profiled it and her earlier this year:
Bonnie Hammer is, by her own estimation, agenda-free in a way that she never could be before. There’s no longer a boss to win over, no purview to extend. “In many ways, I actually work for nobody now,” she says as our late May dinner veers into hour three. Much of Hammer’s workday now is devoted to mentoring those at the company eager for her advice on how to navigate such things as the new structure, the politics and the desire to be seen. Having survived six corporate takeovers and eight bosses (most of them named Jeff, Steve or Mike), Hammer knows of what she speaks. Plus, she insists, she’s unbiased and unfiltered. “I’m offering an opinion based on my many, many years of experience, but I have zero say in what happens,” she says. “No one really above me wants my advice anymore, and I don’t have the power to greenlight or do anything, so it is just about the purity of wanting to help.”
That desire to “pay it forward,” as she puts it, led her to write 15 Lies Women Are Told at Work … and the Truth We Need to Succeed, her newly published book of advice — the kind that she wishes someone had given her early in her career. Unlike many other offerings on the self-help shelf, it strives to dismantle the myths that women in the workplace are routinely fed. Over 300-plus pages, which also include Hammer’s personal tales of triumph and failure, she rejects such pithy maxims as “Know your worth,” “Trust your gut” and “Fake it till you make it.”
“They’re all BS, and worse, they hold women back,” says Hammer, who initially toyed with titling her book I Call Bullshit (Simon & Schuster apparently balked). Rather, she urges readers to “Work on your worth,” “Check your gut” and “Face it till you make it.”
And although the last time I checked I’m not a woman, I thoroughly identified with everything she offers up in her work, as well as the numerous corporate battles she endured, including the ones of more recent days which she lost. Whether one has risen up through the ranks despite perceived deficiencies in where you went to school or what your ethnic background is as opposed to your gender, the words that Hammer imparts so frankly and definitively are well worth making into one’s mantra. I made that decision myself once Boston University denied me the level of scholarship my family needed to send me there even though I had been accepted into the same program which Hammer graduated from.
As more and more executives depart an industry that desperately needs folks with sechel and savvy such as Hammer more than ever, my own prospects for a true comeback, or even a book like 15 LIES, grow dimmer and dimmer. It takes someone who thinks as you do and appreciates rigorous honesty, and doesn’t have an agenda that empowers those who are merely desiring to be obedient, to allow someone like me to have forged any sort of a career. Those who remain in “power” are increasingly lacking in those skills, and both their personal and professional bottom lines are testimonies to those deficiencies.
There are exceptions to that rule, and I’m actively seeking them out every single day. Given that my net worth has a minus sign in front of it as of this writing, my urgency is more white-hot than usual.
I assure you I’m working on it. To be honest, I could use a little help. I’m told it’s a time of giving back. And since we won’t have as direct access to someone like Hammer any more, I’m putting it out there for you who have read this far to ponder.
But if you’d rather not engage in charity, at the very least do purchase her book. We can all use a little less BS in our lives, especially when it’s replaced with Queens logic.
Until next time..