Last month Stanford alumna Betty Cohen, a respected veteran cable television executive, was named president and chief executive officer of Lifetime Entertainment Services. Cohen, Class of 1977, graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree in communications.

She will officially assume her new position on April 26 and will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the premier media network for women. She will oversee the many divisions of the network, including Lifetime Television, the Lifetime Movie Network, Lifetime Radio for Women and Lifetime Online.

“Betty has a keen awareness of the importance of television’s relationship with the viewer and a remarkable ability to identify, understand and get close audiences — providing knowledge that she transforms into the development, marketing and communicating of brands,” said Lifetime Chairman Anne Sweeney in a press release.

Cohen worked for Turner Broadcasting Systems for 14 years, where she oversaw the creation and launch of the Cartoon Network. Before that, she served as senior vice president and general manager of Turner Network Television and also worked as a writer-producer of on-air promotion for the Cable Health Network.

Cohen began her career as a broadcast producer for Public Media Center in San Francisco. Most recently, she was president of Betty Cohen Media Consulting, where she advised multiple companies in the area of brand building, cable channel development and multi-platform programming.

At Stanford, Cohen lived in Naranja during both her freshman and sophomore years. She studied abroad in England her junior year and returned to live in Kairos as a senior. She was involved in a theater groups and Learning Magazine. “There are those people who are strictly interested in working in entertainment — like theatre — and those only interested in doing journalism like CNN. I always liked both,” Cohen said in an interview with The Daily.

Cohen currently serves on the board of directors for the Southeast region of the Anti-Defamation League and the board of advisors for both the Atlanta Girls’ School and Roadtrip Nation. She also mentors with Teach for America.

Cohen is the recipient of many awards, such as the “PROMAX/BDA Pinnacle Award” and the Multi-channel News “Global Programming Award.” In 2000 she was named one of “The 50 Most Powerful Women in Business” by Fortune Magazine. In May 2000, she received the Vanguard Award for Programmers from the National Cable Television Association and in June 1999 was cited by Advertising Age as one of the country’s “Top 100 Marketers.”

“I always knew that I wanted to work in television,” Cohen said.