Former WNBA head becomes first Time’s Up president and CEO

Time’s Up has named Lisa Borders, former president of the Women’s National Basketball Assn., as its first president and CEO.

The organization, established less than a year ago as a response to the sexual harassment scandals rocking the entertainment industry, has since broadened its scope to address larger issues of safety, equal pay and parity in a variety of fields.

Borders, the group announced Tuesday morning, will oversee “an umbrella organization to reach all women, everywhere, linked to a series of affiliates and partners working to advocate for and create change in their respective industries.”

“With Lisa’s skills and leadership, Time’s Up is now in the best position to achieve what we all started — to create a more positive future for workplace culture and a more powerful network for working women of all kinds,” co-founder Shonda Rhimes said in the group’s statement.

Having raised $13 million during the months following a cascade of sexual harassment scandals and the rise of #MeToo, Time’s Up initially set up a legal defense fund, administered by the National Women’s Law Center, to help women who have experienced sexual harassment.

For this year’s Golden Globes ceremony, the group called on female attendees to wear black, creating a powerful image in a scandal-plagued awards season. A-list women including Rhimes, Reese Witherspoon, Ava DuVernay, America Ferrera and Eva Longoria acted as de facto spokeswomen.

The group has since made public statements calling for CBS to use any severance money it might have earmarked for ousted CEO Les Moonves to aid victims of sexual harassment and, more recently, for Brett Kavanaugh to withdraw his Supreme Court nomination. In July, urban planner Nithya Raman was named executive director of Time’s Up Entertainment.

Borders, who has also served as vice president of global community affairs for the Coca-Cola Co. and chair of the Coca-Cola Foundation, will oversee the group’s entertainment branch as well as future initiatives in other industries.

“To disrupt and reinvent the ingrained status quo, we will need all hands on deck to create and sustain enduring change,” Borders said in Tuesday’s statement. “I’m thrilled to lead TIME’S UP and I am convinced that together, we will shift the paradigm of workplace culture.”

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Twitter: @marymacTV