Making Room on Her Plate

Salaam Coleman Smith, president, Style Media

By Lindsay Rubino -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/25/2012 12:01:00 AM

Even with a full plate, Salaam Coleman Smith is an expert at leaving room for more.

With the expansion of Style Network as Style Media announced this past April, Coleman Smith, now president of Style Media, has been given the responsibility of growing the brand’s linear channel, digital platforms and community initiatives, as well as overseeing the network’s rebrand, which launches June 25.

“It’s no different than in family life how you make room for children,” Coleman Smith says of her added oversight. “There’s an endless supply of passion, love and commitment to growing this brand.”

Since Coleman Smith took the reins of Style, the network has experienced both its best year in 2011 and the best quarter in its history, as well as earning the distinction of being the fastest-growing cable network among women 18-34. Style has nearly doubled its women 18-34 viewership year-over-year, an accomplishment that Coleman Smith says shows how its programming “speaks to a next generation of women.”

For its success, Coleman Smith credits her “smart management team, who are really dedicated to continuing to growing the brand in other platforms.”

Style has already had success in its digital properties, with nearly 1 million Twitter followers, which, as Coleman Smith says, is “very unusual for a cable network.” Its new digital footprint will include a more robust Website, and more mobile and app offerings, while capitalizing on Style’s success on Twitter.

Coleman Smith ascribes to an inclusive management style, where she makes sure every initiative is put through a generational filter.

“We ensure people of all levels of the company and across the department have the opportunity to weigh in,” she says. “It’s a very collaborative, multigenerational perspective that goes into every decision that we make.”

As the brand grows from just the cable channel, its diversity—which Coleman Smith says is not limited to just gender and ethnic diversity—becomes more important.

“It’s also diversity in point of view,” she says. “I think that really comes from ensuring that voices throughout my team have an opportunity to be heard.”