Meet the Producer, Director, & Writer Changing the Future of TV: Leigh Davenport

Welcome to Second Life, a podcast spotlighting successful women who’ve made major career changes—and fearlessly mastered the pivot. Hosted by Hillary Kerr, co-founder and chief content officer at Who What Wear, each episode gives you a direct line to women who are game changers in their fields. Subscribe to Second Life on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts to stay tuned.

Leigh Davenport is the ultimate creative multi-hyphenate. She is a talented director, writer, and producer creating modern content deemed at the intersection of woke and whimsical, shifting the narratives surrounding women of color. After spending the last 15 years working in entertainment media in esteemed roles, including writing for the Black Girls Rock! awards and producing at BET, TV One, and VH1, Davenport is finally releasing her own scripted series, Run the World. Premiering on Starz on May 16, the series is Davenport’s love letter to New York and its culture, inspired by her years living and working in the city. "I had such a great group of smart women that I spent my 20s in New York with,” Davenport reveals to us. "We all lived in Harlem, and we loved it. We felt like we were kind of in a sacred space. We thought of ourselves like this new Harlem Renaissance generation. And we worked on all kinds of industries and had all kinds of crazy jobs, and our own kind of versions of The Devil Wears Prada stories going,” she adds. 

The highly anticipated series highlights Davenport’s brilliant writing through her unique lens as a producer. Davenport is also the writer behind the Wendy Williams biopic that came out in January and the upcoming Netflix movie The Perfect Find, starring Gabrielle Union. Davenport’s passion for pursuing work that addresses gender, race, politics, and pop culture has put her at the helm of a new era of television. But before she moved to L.A. to follow her dreams to become a writer and producer, she was the editorial director of the leading lifestyle site for Black women, HelloBeautiful.com. There, she led the site to record-breaking traffic and eventually became the vice president of women’s lifestyle programming and video production.

Tune in to the latest Second Life episode to hear how Davenport realized she had more to offer in her creative career and how she continues to evolve her voice to tell her—and many others’—story. And keep scrolling to watch the trailer for Run the World.

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