In some ways, Michelle Durham can trace her career as a television executive back to a flight to Paris she took as a college student.
“I got off of the plane and I thought ‘Yep, this is where I’m supposed to be.’ Studying abroad was an untouchable dream that I got to make happen. I could see that my world was going to open up beyond Arizona,” she said. “I had such an amazing time that it started to build that a muscle memory of you can do things that are scary and ridiculous. It’s going to make you better. It’s going to make you stronger. So have those feelings of fear, but don’t let them stop you from doing anything because you never know what’s going to change your life.”
Until she was there, studying abroad felt out of touch. She was leaving the country for the first time, and at the time, it was the scariest thing she’d ever done. But these days, she remains dedicated to Paris, visiting once or twice a year.
“I had fun, I learned the culture. My family I lived with, we had dinner together every night and I came back just energized and with a new community,” she said. “All of the women that I studied with, we stayed together through the rest of the major. We had somebody who now is a game theorist, somebody who is in veterinary sciences. I’m in television. We were just a weird group of people who all came together in the French classes.”
Durham, who graduated in 2002 with a double major in French and Communication, is currently the Senior Vice President of Programming for Warner Bros. Discovery. In recognition of her distinguished career as a media executive, specializing in television programming, planning and research and bringing innovation in reshaping the industry into the multiplatform format of today, Durham is awarded the College of Humanities’ 2025-26 Alumna of the Year.
Durham started her television career in Los Angeles, working in research with the marketing team for the international side of CBS. She studied how audiences interacted with television shows and then got into qualitative research, listening to audiences.
“I was reading TV guides to find out what people were watching, internationally. And it was very easy for me to read what was happening in France, which is one of the biggest television markets for U.S. product,” she said. “So all of a sudden, all of these passions, all of these things that I wanted to do – television, language, international business – were coming together for the first time.”
Durham didn’t stay in her international role for long, moving on to the programing side of the company after moving to New York, and steadily rising through the ranks. Today, she is in charge of strategy for 15 cable networks, including budget and operational oversight, managing a team of 26 and a multi-platform portfolio of live sports, original series and acquisitions.
“Those lessons about what people want to watch, how they’re watching it, how they’re consuming stories, what moves them from one place to the other, that all stayed. Those foundations are in learning about language and culture,” she said. “So while I don’t speak French every day, those foundational lessons still apply.”