Kerry Washington
Companies increasingly find their values tested in public, often without warning. Workforces, customers and investors want to know what the institution actually stands for, and silence is read as a position. The harder question for senior leaders is how to speak with conviction when every word will be quoted, contested and used as evidence.
Kerry Washington is an Emmy-nominated actor, producer and civic activist who helps organisations think about voice, values and representation in moments when leaders are expected to take a public stand.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Kerry Washington
- A globally recognised cultural voice on representation, civic participation and women’s rights, with a platform built over a decade of headline activism rather than borrowed celebrity
- Founder and principal of Simpson Street, a production company whose work, Confirmation, American Son, Little Fires Everywhere, treats race, justice and family as serious subjects for mainstream audiences
- Two-time Tony-nominated Broadway producer and a working creative executive, which means she speaks about storytelling, audience and influence from inside the industry, not as a commentator
- Author of Thicker than Water, a New York Times bestselling memoir, which gives her a personal narrative on identity and disclosure that lands with audiences far beyond fan culture
- Co-chair of Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote and a long-standing partner to grassroots civic organisations, which gives her a credible point of view on how institutions engage with democratic participation
Biography highlights
- Star of ABC’s Scandal (2013-2020), the first Black woman to lead a network drama since 1974, with two Primetime Emmy nominations, a Golden Globe nomination, a SAG nomination and two NAACP Image Awards for the role
- Founder of Simpson Street (2016), the production company behind Confirmation (HBO), American Son (Broadway and Netflix), Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu) and the Gypsy Broadway revival
- Author of Thicker than Water: A Memoir (Little, Brown, 2023), a New York Times bestseller
- Co-chair of When We All Vote; former member of President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities
- Recipient of the NAACP President’s Award (2013), the GLAAD Vanguard Award (2015) and the ACLU Bill of Rights Award (2016); named to the Time 100 in 2014
- Phi Beta Kappa graduate of George Washington University
Biography
The role of Olivia Pope on Scandal was the first time in nearly forty years that an American network drama had been led by a Black woman. Kerry Washington carried that show for seven seasons, while building a parallel career as a producer, author and civic organiser. The combination is what makes her interesting as a public voice, the platform is large, but the work behind it is specific.
Simpson Street, the production company she founded in 2016, sits at the centre of that work. Its projects, Confirmation on HBO, American Son on Broadway and Netflix, Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu, are commercial properties that take seriously the politics of race, family and justice. As a producer, she is now a two-time Tony nominee, with credits including the recent Broadway revival of Gypsy. The company also runs a venture arm and an impact arm that funds grassroots civic organisations through the Movement Voter Project’s Vision Into Power Cohort.
Her activism is similarly substantive. She co-chairs Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote, served on President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and has campaigned on voter access in Georgia, women’s health and violence against women. Her memoir, Thicker than Water, a New York Times bestseller, added a personal layer to that public profile, telling the story of learning in adulthood that the man who raised her was not her biological father.
For a corporate audience, what she offers is a credible voice on representation, civic participation and the conditions under which institutions are expected to speak. She is most powerful in conversation formats and keynotes that address voice, values and storytelling, where her experience as a producer and activist gives her something specific to say, rather than as a content expert on a defined management discipline.
Key speaking topics
- Activism, civic voice and public participation
- Representation in media and storytelling
- Women’s health and women’s rights
- Identity, family and personal disclosure
- Building purpose-driven creative businesses
- Voting access and democratic engagement
Ideal for
- CEO and board events where the brief is values, voice and the conditions for taking a public position
- DEI, ERG and women’s leadership programmes seeking a recognised cultural figure with substantive activist credentials
- Investor, philanthropic or impact-led convenings on civic participation and democracy
- Fireside conversations or in-conversation formats with senior moderators, the format where her authority is strongest
Audience outcomes
- A clearer view of how representation in media and culture shapes the expectations placed on institutions
- A grounded reading of what credible civic engagement looks like for a public figure or organisation, drawn from over a decade of activist practice
- A personal account of identity and disclosure that gives audiences a vocabulary for difficult conversations
- An inside view of how purpose and commercial production can sit inside the same business
Talks
A keynote on the conditions under which individual voice translates into collective impact, drawn from her own civic work.
Key takeaways:
- What credible activism looks like from a platform of scale
- How institutions are read when they choose to speak or stay silent
- Where individual conviction meets organised civic participation
A focused talk on gender-based violence and the role public voice and policy play in changing outcomes.
Key takeaways:
- The data and the human story behind violence against women and girls
- What sustained advocacy has and has not changed
- Where corporate and civic actors can meaningfully engage
A fireside format on career, activism, identity and the making of Thicker than Water, tailored to the convening’s audience.
Key takeaways:
- The arc from acting to producing to civic organising
- Lessons from building Simpson Street as a purpose-led business
- A personal account of identity, family and disclosure