Events

The Gracies Interview Series provides access to winners who speak on their experience and the impact that winning a Gracie has had on their career. The latest session (available below as well as on the AWM YouTube channel) features Suzanne Rico, Award-Winning Journalist, Writer & Podcaster with Lisa Guerrero, Award-Winning Journalist. The video is available publicly through May 4th. After that time, it will only be available to AWM Members through the Knowledge Center. Please email info@allwomeninmedia.org with questions.

Suzanne Rico is an award-winning journalist, writer, and podcaster whose morning newscast garnered three Emmy awards during her tenure. In 2025, her long-form narrative podcast – The Man Who Calculated Death – won the Best Writing Gracie Award, Best Indie and Listener’s Choice Signal Awards, Best History W3 Award, and was Ambie nominated for Best Indie. A deeply personal project for Suzanne, the podcast was prompted by her mother’s dying wish that she focus her journalistic skill on her ancestry in Nazi Germany.

Suzanne spent two decades reporting and anchoring local and national news for CBS, NBC, and ABC, with assignments that found her embedded on an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, training with Top Gun pilots in Nevada, and interviewing notable figures like Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Suzanne has also guest starred on TV and in films, including Trueblood, Disturbia, CSI, NCIS, and Saturday Morning All Star Hits! She has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Los Angeles Magazine, Oprah Magazine, and Outside Magazine, among others. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Communications from UCLA and a master’s degree in Broadcast Communications from San Francisco State University. Named Woman of the Year for her tireless commitment to inner city youth in Los Angeles, Suzanne has mentored two Latinas for more than twenty years who have become part of her family.

Award-winning journalist, Lisa Guerrero, is one of the most popular and hard-working personalities on television. She was with Inside Edition for over 18 years and was the chief investigative correspondent for the show which is America’s top-rated syndicated news-magazine program. She traveled the country covering crimes, scams, cold cases, and consumer reports.

Her brand of tough, confrontational reporting made her a fan favorite and she has won over thirty-five national investigative journalism awards including eight National Headliner Awards, twice for “Best Consumer Reporting,” five times for “Best Investigative Report” and once for Best In Show. Most recently she was honored with the 2026 National Journalism Impact Award and a Gracie Award in 2025. She’s been recognized twice by The National Press Club for consumer reporting and animal abuse investigations and has been nominated for nine Daytime Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Personality and Best Entertainment categories.

Aside from the over 5 million viewers that tune into Inside Edition each night, Lisa’s investigations have racked up an additional 120 million views on the Inside Edition YouTube channel which currently has over 10 million subscribers. That doesn’t include her 2019 interview with the televangelist, Kenneth Copeland which was viewed by an astonishing half a billion people worldwide! Lisa joined Inside Edition in 2006 as the West Coast correspondent covering breaking news, human interest stories, and the entertainment industry. She was promoted to chief investigative correspondent in 2010 and in her 18 years on the show, the ratings have consistently increased. After a move to prime access, ratings skyrocketed and in 2018, Inside Edition surpassed Entertainment Tonight in the national ratings, for the first time in the 30+ year history of the show.

Besides being a rating catalyst, Lisa’s reports have helped solve dozens of crimes and put criminals behind bars, they’ve changed legislation and company policies across the country and helped to shine a light on human sex trafficking, child abuse, and cold case murders. She has also revealed to the public hundreds of scam artists, dirty politicians, cheaters, and crooks. Her investigations have been profiled in Newsweek, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Lisa is also a popular keynote speaker whose platform, “Being Brave” motivates a wide range of audiences from corporate seminars to women’s organizations to youth groups, with the tools to unleash their inner courage by learning her “4 Steps To Being Brave.” Her book on this subject (and a whole lot more) is entitled “Warrior: My Path To Being Brave” and was released by Hachette Books in 2023 and it became an instant Amazon Bestseller. The reviews have been outstanding including raves by the Library Journal, Gayle King, Bill Plashke at the LA Times and Drew Barrymore. “Warrior: My Path To Being Brave” is now being developed into a scripted television series.

Most recently, Lisa was part of the A&E smash series, “Secrets Of Playboy” in which she hosted in-depth interviews with Sondra Theodore and Kristina and Karissa Shannon all of whom were in long-term relationships with Hugh Hefner. She has guest co-hosted The View and has been a special correspondent for Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, she is also a frequent guest panelist on CNN and HLN and has guest hosted on KABC Radio in Los Angeles with Dr. Drew and Jillian Barberie.

Before joining Inside Edition, Lisa spent over a decade as a nationally recognized sports reporter on CBS, Fox, ABC, and ESPN having anchored and reported for dozens of shows including the wildly popular “The Best Damn Sports Show Period.” She has interviewed hundreds of athletes, including Alex Rodriguez, Kobe Bryant, Brett Favre, and Mia Hamm. Lisa was the first journalist (male or female) to ask Barry Bonds, on camera, if he’d taken steroids. She has broadcast from nine Super Bowls, five World Series, and four NBA national championship games as well as the World Figure Skating championships. In 2003, Lisa was the sideline reporter for ABC’s Monday Night Football, and Al Michaels called the rating increase that season “the Guerrero factor.”

Lisa is an experienced actress with guest star appearances on Southland, George Lopez, and Fraiser and she was a series regular on Aaron Spelling’s, Sunset Beach. She also played herself in the Academy Award-nominated film, Moneyball. In 2006 Lisa served as Executive Producer on the feature film, A Plumm Summer (Paramount), starring Billy Baldwin and Henry Winkler. The film won numerous awards including the International Family Film Festival Top Applause Award and the Austin Film Festival’s Best Family Film.

Lisa makes her home in Southern California.

If you have a suggested topic of speaker for a future interview, please email info@allwomeninmedia.org.

Gracies Interview Series Archive

About The Gracies Interview Series

While loved by millions, few knew the real Gracie Allen as she was always in character when in public. The Gracies Interview Series, presented by NCTA – The Internet and Television Association, serves to strip away the persona and share the grit and wisdom of today’s media professionals. The Alliance for Women in Media has interviewed women and men in media across every industry and job function who have blazed trails for those to come. 

If you have someone to suggest for a future Gracies Interview Series, we would love to hear from you. Please send ideas to info@allwomeninmedia.org.

Past Gracies Interview Series Guests:

  • Katie Couric, Award-Winning Journalist and Founder of Katie Couric Media
  • Colleen Wheelahan, Morning Host on SiriusXM Symphony Hall and Host of Evening Classics on WUOL-FM, and Laura Atkinson, Host at Louisville Public Media
  • Julia Whelan, Author, Screenwriter, Actor, and Acclaimed Audiobook Narrator
  • Claudia Uceda, Congressional Correspondent with Univision Network News
  • Katrina B, Producer for Nessa On Air on HOT97
  • Emily Turner, Anchor & reporter with Action News Jax
  • Melissa Gibbs, Director of Journalism News Lab, Brigham Young University School of Communications and BYU graduates and Gracie Award winners Aubree B. Jennings, Alexa Elliott Johnson, and Anna LaTour Youngs
  • Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Co-Founders of Lemonada Media
  • Deborah Parenti, President & Publisher, Radio Ink, RBR, and TVBR
  • Jess Morales Rocketto and Stephanie Valencia, Founders of the Latino Media Network
  • Beverly Chase, VP, Current Programming & Development and EP & Showrunner, VICE on Showtime
  • Chesley Maddox-Dorsey, CEO of A Wonder Media Group, LLC (AURN – American Urban Radio and SupeRadio)
  • Paula A. Kerger, President & CEO, PBS
  • Cathy Hughes, Founder and Chairwoman of URBAN ONE, Inc.
  • Julie Talbott, President, Premiere Networks
  • Jessica Cordova Kramer, CEO, Lemonada Media
  • Marcia Cruz, VP Content Acquisition Latam, Vrio Corp.
  • Susan Larkin, Chief Operating Officer, Entercom
  • Jill Frederickson, Senior Vice President, Production & Content Strategy, ESPN
  • Dr. Susan R. Bailey, M.D., President of the American Medical Association (AMA)
  • Julie Moos, Executive Director, National Press Club Journalism Institute
  • Jason Bailey, President, Sun Broadcast Group and AWM Honorary Trustee
  • Vicki Lins, President & CEO, CTAM
  • Elaina Smith (Nights with Elaina Host)
  • Nicole Schuman & Seth Arenstein, PR News Editors
  • Annie Howell, Founder & Managing Partner, The Punch Point Group
  • Michelle Rice, General Manager, TV One
  • Mike McVay, President, McVay Media
  • Elizabeth Smart, Author, Founder of the “Elizabeth Smart Foundation” and Children’s Advocate
  • Libby Geist, Vice President & Executive Vice President, EPSN Films and Original Content
  • Shayna Sharpe, CEO of Regional REps Corp.
  • Karen Brodkin, President of Business Affairs and IMG Worldwide
  • Lauren McHale, Vice President and Director of Sales, Katz Sports Marketing
  • Hannah Storm, Award-Winner Journalist, Producer & Director
  • Suzyn Waldman, First Full-Time Female Color Commentator in the Major Leagues
  • Mickey Wilson, Chief Marketing Officer at WideOrbit

Sponsor