Tara Montgomery

A veteran award-winning media executive, Montgomery is currently Executive Vice President, Head of Unscripted Programming for OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, and oversees all Oprah Branded content (Oprah’s Book Club, prime time interviews, Super Soul, live events). In the Spring of 2017, Montgomery led the team to launch “Oprah’s Super Soul Conversations” Podcast, which now has 92MM+ downloads in every country on the globe. Apple named it one of the Top 20 Most Downloaded Podcasts of the Year. Prior to her work with OWN, Montgomery rose to Supervising Producer during her 16 year tenure with The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest rated daytime talk show in television history. When Oprah created a new cable network in 2011, Montgomery expanded her role and became executive vice president of programming, production, and development and launched its highest-rated show, “Oprah’s Next Chapter,” (which included Oprah’s landmark interview with Lance Armstrong). As executive producer and co-creator, she managed the teams and budgets to develop and produce interviews that would help establish OWN as a top 30 network in its first year. She would go on to become executive producer of Super Soul Sunday, OWN’s flagship series that has won 3 Emmy Awards. Montgomery is a key strategic leader outside of television as well. When Oprah went on an eight-city arena tour (“Oprah’s Life You Want”), Montgomery led the creative programming for the multi-platform venture. Prior to her 24 year-career with Ms. Winfrey, Montgomery worked in television news under Ted Koppel for Nightline and under Diane Sawyer and Sam Donaldson for Prime Time Live. She was an intern in the White House Office of Media Affairs under President George H.W. Bush. Montgomery serves on the Board of Directors for Bright Pink, a national non-profit focused on the prevention and early detection of breast and ovarian cancer in young women. Montgomery grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and earned her bachelor’s in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She spent a term in London at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. She completed the Senior Executive Summit at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. She lives in Chicago with her husband and children.