Constance “Connie” Orlando ’89, head of programming for Black Entertainment Television (BET), will receive a Chancellor’s Citation at this week’s Coming Back Together reunion. She previously was the senior vice president for specials, music programming and news at BET. In her current role, Orlando leads the teams responsible for “The BET Awards,” “Hip Hop Awards,” “The BET Honors,” “Celebration of Gospel” and “Black Girls Rock!”
Before joining BET, Orlando, who also serves on the advisory board for Clark Atlanta University’s television department as the programming committee chair, launched her own full-service production company, CMO Productions. Not long after, CMO struck a partnership with music icon and businessman Jay-Z to produce the first of its kind, direct-to-video movie soundtrack “The Streets Is Watching.”
A recipient of six NAACP awards and a 2016 Network Journal 25 Influential Black Women in Business honoree, Orlando was named a National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) “Top 40 Under 40” as one of cable’s top executives. As a student at Syracuse, Orlando was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She is a 1989 graduate of the Whitman School of Management, and has launched the Connie Orlando endowment for black women with television industry majors.
View the full Q & A at SU News.