Debra Martin Chase

Debra Martin Chase has been a director of B&G Foods since July 2020. Ms. Chase, an Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning television and motion picture producer, is an entertainment industry icon and trailblazer as the first African American female producer ever to have a production deal at a major studio, and the first African American woman to produce a film that grossed over $100 million. To date, her films have grossed over a half billion dollars. Ms. Chase is the founder and has been serving as Chief Executive Officer of Martin Chase Productions since its formation in 2000. Prior to forming Martin Chase Productions, Ms. Chase served as Executive Vice President of Brown House Productions, the late Whitney Houston’s production company, from 1995 to 2000, and Vice President of Mundy Lane Entertainment, Denzel Washington’s production company, from 1992 to 1995. Before that, Ms. Chase served as an in-house attorney and then in the executive training program at Columbia Pictures. Prior to entering the entertainment industry, Ms. Chase practiced corporate law in New York and Houston.

Ms. Chase serves on the boards of the New York City Ballet, where she chairs the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and the Second Stage Theatre in Manhattan, where she chairs the Artistic Committee. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the advisory boards of the African American Film Critics’ Association and The Mayor’s Fund of New York City. She is also a long-serving co-chair of the Athena Film Festival in New York City, one of the largest film festivals in the United States dedicated to films by and about women.