Henry 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 world’s leading premium television company.  A member of the General Management Unit, he has taught courses in both the MBA and Executive Education programs.Since 2015 he has served as a director of TEGNA (NYSE: TGNA), a broadcast and digital media company that owns the largest number of affiliates of both the NBC and CBS television networks.  He is also a director of AmerisourceBergen (NYSE: ABC), one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical services company and number 16 on the Fortune 500 list of the biggest corporations in America.

Since becoming a faculty member, McGee has co-authored a number of media industry cases and is a member of the school’s Digital Initiative and Business History Initiative. He is also a director of the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC.

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 co-production.  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, Band of Brothers and Game of Thrones. With the launch of offices in London and Toronto, he drove the expansion of the company’s international business and HBO’s titles are now distributed in more than 70 countries around the globe. 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 non-profit 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 42^nd 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, the board of overseers of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Global Advisory Council of the Silk Road Project.

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 and also served as an on-camera reporter for Newsweek Broadcasting.