One of the most successful women in television, Anne Sweeney is Co-Chair of Disney Media Networks and President of Disney-ABC Television Group. We were honored to have Sweeney as our Keynote Speaker at our annual Business 100 luncheon last November. She gave a heartfelt speech in which she told what her Irish heritage meant to her, mentioning that her great grandfather, Hugh Tormay, was “just thirteen when he made the trip over from Ireland, leading his six-year-old brother and his four-year-old sister into the unknown.”

Sweeney was born in Kingston, New York and graduated from College of New Rochelle and Harvard University. She has been named one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business by Fortune and one of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes. She is a recipient of the Cable Television Public Affairs Association’s President’s Award, the Golden Mike Award for Outstanding Contributions to Broadcasting by the Broadcasters Foundation of America, and the Matrix Award for television from New York Women in Communications, Inc.

Sweeney was elected director of the International Council of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2001. In 2007, she was inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame. She has received the Committee of 200’s Luminary Award, and just this past October became the first female executive in history to receive MIPCOM’s Personality of the Year honor.

Sweeney, who earned a BA from the College of New Rochelle and an EdM from Harvard, traces her roots to Meath, Kerry and Mayo.