Entertainment executive Tara Duncan does not struggle with impostor syndrome. This, she says, is because her work is not about following a designated path of success, but creating new ones. “I’ve had the benefit of being at places during major transitions or truly building from scratch,” says Duncan, 43. “And so in those times, no one really knows what they are doing. The name of the game, and the goal, is to experiment, to try things and be iterative.”
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In 2014, Duncan started work at Netflix as one of its first creative executives, overseeing production of shows like Orange Is the New Black and Narcos, both of which helped make streaming what it is today. In 2020, she joined Disney and led its Gen Z-focused brand, Freeform, which released shows like the hit Cruel Summer. Now she leads the company’s Onyx Collective, which launched in 2021 and focuses on content from creators of color and underrepresented voices. “The goal for Onyx is to tell authentically, culturally specific stories, but stories that will resonate with everyone,” Duncan says. “I want the cultural specificity. But I also want the universality of all of our truly human stories. My job is to pick those creators and to build that relationship. They’re the ones that then tell the story.”
Onyx Collective began its programming with Summer of Soul, a documentary helmed by first-time director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson—a choice that Duncan says was intentional. Drawn to the uniqueness of the story, the depiction of “Black joy under duress,” and a cultural specificity that would resonate with a wide range of audiences, Duncan and her team began following the title a few months before it premiered at Sundance Film Festival—where it won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award—and eventually acquired it. The movie, which would go on to win an Oscar, set the tone for the company as a whole.
Since then, Onyx has expanded to different kinds of stories, from the docuseries The 1619 Project to the documentary Anthem to the legal drama Reasonable Doubt to the comedy How to Die Alone. Hollywood luminaries such as Oprah Winfrey and Kerry Washington have served as executive producers on the company’s projects. Duncan is currently excited for the upcoming Deli Boys–a “hilarious, wild comedy unlike anything on TV right now,” created by Abdullah Saeed and produced by former Girls co-showrunner Jenni Konner, which will premiere on Hulu on March 6.
“The goal for the brand is to be truly diverse in that we will offer scripted, unscripted series, comedy, but really that there will be a creative perspective from an underrepresented artist,” Duncan says. “I am here to use the access that I have, and truly the reach of the Walt Disney Co., to give artists an opportunity to tell stories on that massive of a scale.”
For Duncan, leadership is not about “having all the answers,” but instead asking the right questions and lifting up the creatives who will help her answer them. It’s never been lost on her that she is often in spaces that were not “designed for a Black woman,” but her community of Black women executives and creatives, both mentors and peers, has helped her keep going. They lend each other support, she says, rather than viewing each other as competition.
“The feeling is there’s enough space for all of us, and quite frankly, the industry overall needs us,” Duncan says. “Some of the pressures that we experience are pretty unique, so to have people who can really understand the pressures, the successes, the joys … it is really a necessary support group.”
