Doug Coblens
Executive Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs
Discovery Communications Inc. (DCI) has grown from its core property, the Discovery Channel—first launched in the United States in 1985—to become a leading media and entertainment company, with global operations in 170 countries and territories and nearly 1.4 billion cumulative subscribers.
(L to R): Veta T. Richardson of MCCA; Doug Coblens of Discovery Communications Inc.; and Glenn M. Engelmann of AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals
Dedicated to providing world-class documentary programming, DCI boasts over 100 distinct networks, including TLC, Animal Planet, Discovery en Español, Discovery Home & Health, and Discovery Real Time. DCI’s other properties consist of Discovery Education and Discovery Commerce, which operates more than 100 Discovery Channel stores across the country. DCI also distributes BBC America and BBC World News in the United States.
Executive Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs, Doug Coblens has cultivated a diverse team. Over 80 percent of the department’s attorneys are women and 57 percent are minorities. “The best thing we have is our people,” says Coblens. “They are of the highest caliber. Having people from different backgrounds who view the world from different perspectives is emblematic of how all departments of companies should be, including law departments.”
DCI’s law department has a three-pronged approach to maintaining its impressive track record. First is recruitment. Individual lawyers are expected to cultivate relationships within their own personal and alumni communities, spreading the word that DCI is a company that wants to hire diverse candidates. As soon as new attorneys join the department, their strengths and weaknesses are assessed to ensure they receive the appropriate development tools. Second, DCI stresses education. Each core group meets weekly, and professional development topics, including diversity, are discussed regularly. Finally, the law department sponsors an active speaker circuit, bringing in legal professionals with diverse backgrounds to discuss their experiences. The speaker series opens the channels of communication, presents different models of creating road maps to success, and demonstrates the department’s commitment to diversity. In fact, Coblens demonstrates his personal commitment by running the series himself.
The law department also works to ensure the future diversity of the profession by offering a summer internship. In the summer of 2005, DCI hosted three interns, two of whom were minorities.
DCI is active in the community and participates in the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications Diversity Roundtable, which gathers industry practitioners to discuss and share diversity challenges and best practices.
In 2005, DCI was named one of Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” and in the top 10 of Working Mother magazine’s “Best Companies for Working Mothers.” Washingtonian magazine identified DCI as one of the top 50 employers in the Washington, DC metro area, and it is a proud recipient of the “Excellent Place to Work” seal, awarded by the Montgomery County, Maryland Work/Life Alliance.
From the November/December 2006 issue of Diversity & The Bar®