Henry McGee

Henry McGee is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. A member of the General Management Unit, he teaches the required MBA courses Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA) and Field Immersion Experience for Leadership Development (FIELD). In addition, he is an instructor in the executive education course The Business of Entertainment, Media and Sports. He is a member of the Harvard Business School Business History Initiative and a director of the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC.

Prior to his appointment to the faculty in July 2013, McGee was President of HBO Home Entertainment, the DVD and digital program distribution division of Home Box Office, the world’s leading premium television company. The recipient of numerous industry awards for his pioneering use of Internet-based marketing and early adoption of the high definition format for the company’s releases, McGee was named one of the 50 most powerful African Americans in the entertainment business by Black Enterprise magazine. He served as a director of the Digital Entertainment Group, the trade association of entertainment companies and electronics manufacturers focused on fostering new technologies, and is a former board member of Quickflix (ASX:QFX), Australia and New Zealand’s only subscription DVD and rental video streaming service. Since 2004 he has been a director of AmerisourceBergen (NYSE: ABC), one of the nation’s top pharmaceutical service companies and number 28 on the Fortune 500 list of the biggest corporations in the United States.

McGee joined HBO immediately after graduating from Harvard Business School 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 oversaw the release of numerous multi-million selling releases 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’s accomplishments have received significant attention. In 1997 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Minorities in Communications. In 1998 he was named one of New York’s top 100 minority executives by Crain’s New York Business. That same year he was elected a fellow of the United Kingdom’s RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers & Commerce). In 2004 the Harvard Business School African American Alumni Association honored McGee with its Professional Achievement Award. McGee was inducted into the Video Hall of Fame, one of the home entertainment industry’s most prestigious honors, in 2008.

McGee has a strong interest in the governance of non-profit organizations and has been especially involved in the fields of arts and education. 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 Black Filmmaker Foundation, The Public Theater, Radcliffe College, Save the Children, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the New 42nd Street, the organization overseeing the revitalization and management of seven historic theaters in Times Square.

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.