Lucille "Lucie" Salhany (
Arabic: لوسي صالحاني; born May 25, 1946)[1] is an American media executive of
Jordanian and
Lebanese Heritage.[2][3] Salhany was the first woman to head a broadcast
television network in 1993 in the position as Chairwoman of
Fox Broadcasting Company. She later created the
United Paramount Network.[4][5] She has had over 30 years of experience in the entertainment business,[6][7] and during the height of her career, was one of the most powerful women at the
C-Suite level.[8][9]
Early life
Salhany was born in
Cleveland,
Ohio, to father Halim "Hal" Jacob Mady, who was
Jordanian, and mother Matilda "Tillie" Mady (née Thomas), who was
Lebanese.[10][11][12] Her parents owned a grocery store in Cleveland.[4]
In 1967, Salhany got a job as a secretary to the Program Manager at an independent TV station in Cleveland called
WKBF-TV. She was continuously promoted, and after training by her boss, when she was 24, she took over his position as Program Manager of the station. In 1975, Salhany became program manager of the Boston TV station,
WLVI-TV.[4]
In 1993, Salhany was responsible for the development the late night show, The Chevy Chase Show,[16] but it was canceled after 6 weeks on air, and was not well received by critics or affiliates alike.[17] The canceled show cost the network tens of millions of dollars.[4] Although Salhany took the network from four nights of programming to seven nights of programming, and was responsible for creating the TV show, The X-Files, which was very successful, and brought the
NFL to the network,[18] she left after three and a half years on her five-year contract, saying that Murdoch breached terms of her contract by not maintaining reporting structure. Salhany claimed Murdoch, in meetings in front of others, asked if she was a "fem-Nazi" and what her husband would think of things.[11][19]
UPN
She moved back to Paramount as they were about to launch the
United Paramount Network, also known as the UPN—which later merged with
The WB.[20] Salhany was Chief Executive Officer of UPN from 1995 to 1997.[21]
In 1997, after leaving UPN, Salhany moved to Boston, where her husband is based, and started a media consultancy business called JH Media.[7]
From 1999 to 2002: Salhany was President/Chief Executive Officer of LifeFX Networks, Inc., a company that animated faces.[11][22][23]
Salhany joined the Hewlett-Packard (HP) Board of Directors in January 2002, in connection with the acquisition of
Compaq Computer Corporation.[24] In 2002, she also became a member of the HR and Compensation Committee.[25]
Salhany was appointed to the Audit Committee in September 2006. In the same month, she became the Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee.[26]
As a result of new leadership and heavy criticism of HP’s board, Salhany left HP’s board in 2011.[27]Leo Apotheker, took over as chief of HP in November 2010 and brought in five new directors to diversify leadership.[28]
Leading up to Salhany’s departure, the HP board faced shareholder lawsuits and received criticism from analysts and shareholders, over the hiring of Apotheker. Of the 12-member board who voted to hire Apotheker, the majority of board members had never met Apotheker.[29][30]
Salhany is married to Boston restaurateur John Polcari, Jr. of
Regina Pizzeria and Polcari's. They have two sons, Hal and Jake, whom they adopted from
Beirut,
Lebanon.[4][37] She was previously married in the late 1960s.[11]
King, Larry, and Pat Piper. "Lucie Salhany, former president and CEO, UPN Television." Future Talk: Conversations About Tomorrow with Today's Most Provocative Personalities. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999.
ISBN978-0-060-93015-8OCLC40938799
Kimmel, Daniel M. The Fourth Network: How Fox Broke the Rules and Reinvented Television. Chicago: I.R. Dee, 2004.
ISBN978-1-566-63951-4OCLC876592763