Henry W. McGee

Henry McGee joined the HBS faculty in 2013 after retiring as President of HBO Home Entertainment, the digital and DVD program distribution division of Home Box Office, the pioneering premium television company. A member of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit, McGee has coauthored numerous cases on the media and cultural industries. He co-designed and teaches the courses Business of the Arts and Scaling Minority Businesses and is a member of the school’s Social Enterprise Initiative. He serves as faculty co-advisor for both the Entertainment and Media Club and the African American Student Union and is a two-time recipient of the Robert F. Greenhill Award for service to the HBS community. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), and a former director of the Pew Research Center.

McGee is chair of the Governance, Public Policy, and Corporate Responsibility Committee of TEGNA (NYSE: TGNA), a broadcast and digital media company that is the largest station affiliate group of the NBC television network. From 2004 to 2024, he served as a director of Cencora (NYSE: COR), one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical services company and number ten on the Fortune 500 list of the biggest corporations in America.  In 2018 the National Association of Corporate Directors named McGee to the Directorship 100, the organization’s annual recognition of the country’s most influential boardroom members.

McGee joined HBO immediately after graduating from HBS in 1979. During the course of his 34­-year career with the company, he held posts in a wide range of areas including family programming, film acquisition and international coproduction. Named president of HBO Home Entertainment in 1995, McGee received numerous industry awards for his pioneering use of Internet­-based marketing and early adoption of the high-definition format for the company’s DVD releases. Named one of the 50 most powerful African Americans in the entertainment business by Black Enterprise magazine, McGee oversaw the digital and DVD release of numerous blockbusters including The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and Game of Thrones. McGee also served as a director of the Digital Entertainment Group, the trade association of entertainment and electronics manufacturers focused on fostering new technologies. In 2008 he was inducted into the Video Hall of Fame, the home entertainment industry’s most prestigious honor.

McGee has a strong interest in the governance of non­profit organizations and has been especially involved in the arts. He has served as president of both the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Foundation, the nation’s largest modern dance organization, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. He has also been a board member of the Sundance Institute, The Public Theater, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the New 42nd Street, the organization overseeing the revitalization and management of seven historic theaters in Times Square. Currently he is a member of the executive committee of the Black Filmmaker Foundation and a director of the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC.

After graduating from Harvard College, magna cum laude, in 1974, McGee worked as a reporter for Newsweek magazine in its New York and Washington bureaus. He covered stories in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, education, and entertainment.