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William C. "Bill" Allen
President and CEO
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Bill Allen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. In that capacity, he also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of all of the subsidiary corporations of the LAEDC including the World Trade Center Association Los Angeles – Long Beach. Mr. Allen is also a Vice Chair of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley and a member of the Board of Directors of the California Association of Local Economic Development, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Film L.A., and Unite L.A. In 2007, Mr. Allen was appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to serve on the Los Angeles Economy and Jobs Committee and in 2008 he was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Weingart Foundation.
Active in regional economic development for more than a decade, Mr. Allen was the first CEO of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley from 1996-2000, and in 2000 was named California’s Civic Entrepreneur of the Year by the California Center for Regional Leadership. As president and CEO of the non-profit Economic Alliance, Mr. Allen raised more than five million dollars and assembled an unprecedented public-private partnership involving all of the leading cities, colleges, and business organizations in the San Fernando Valley. Under his guidance, the Alliance launched programs to expand international trade, improve local education and work force development, and develop viable solutions to regional transportation challenges (including three regional transit planning summits in 1997 and 1998 which led to the creation of the highly successful Orange Line in the valley).
Mr. Allen is currently a member of the Board of Councilors of the Rossier School of Education at USC and the Board of Directors of Health Dynamics, Inc., and the Valley Presbyterian Hospital for whom he also co-chaired the “Shaping Tomorrow” capital campaign. He has served as a trustee of the University of Southern California, chair of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and co-chair of the National Council for Families and Television. He has also served on the Leadership Council and Board of Directors of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, the Business Advisory Commission to the former Speaker of the California Assembly Robert Hertzberg, and the Alumni Presidents Council advisory group to USC president Steven B. Sample. He has also served on the advisory boards of the California Center for Regional Leadership, the Media Arts Academy at Los Angeles Valley College, and the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at California State University at Northridge.
Mr. Allen has also been active in the recruitment of new leaders for Los Angeles institutions. As a member of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners’ Blue Ribbon Committee, he helped draft the criteria for the search which brought William Bratton to the Los Angeles Police Department. He chaired the search committee that selected Mark Drummond as chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, served on the LAUSD Citizen’s Advisory Committee that drafted the criteria for selecting the former LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer, and was a member of the California State University Chancellor’s search committee for the current president of California State University at Northridge Jolene Koester.
Mr. Allen is also a veteran television network and studio executive with more than twenty years experience in entertainment production and management. He is also the owner of Meadowlane Enterprises, Inc., licensor of a library of classic television series, and Meadowlane Music, Inc., publisher of a popular music catalog. From 1991 through 1995, Mr. Allen was President of MTM Television, the highly regarded independent production company founded by Grant Tinker and Mary Tyler Moore. Mr. Allen originally joined MTM in 1986 as a Senior Vice President and oversaw the production of such television classics as Remington Steele, St. Elsewhere, and Newhart. During his nine years with the company, he supervised the development and production of nearly 600 episodes of network, syndicated and cable television including the previously listed series as well as Evening Shade with Burt Reynolds, the Trials of Rosie O'Neill with Sharon Gless, Christy with Kellie Martin and Tyne Daly, and several TV movies and specials.
Mr. Allen came to MTM from the CBS Television Network where he served as an Associate Program Executive in the Comedy Series Programming Department (1980-82), and as Manager (1982-84) and later Director (1984-86) of the CBS Comedy Program Development Department, where he supervised the development of such successful CBS series as Crazy Like a Fox and Designing Women.
A cum laude graduate of the Cinema Television School at the University of Southern California in 1979, Mr. Allen also received his Masters Degree in Business Administration from Pepperdine University in 1983. In 1999, he received a certificate in 21st Century Management from the Graziadio School of Business & Management at Pepperdine. Mr. Allen and his wife Marie reside in the San Fernando Valley with their three children.
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