Tyler Perry is an actor, director, screenwriter, producer, playwright, author, and philanthropist. He started his career writing plays, many of which became the inspiration for his films, including the legendary “Madea.” The Madea franchise has grossed over $1 billion at the box office and Tyler’s entertainment enterprise has raked in over $2 billion. Tyler has created seventeen shows, twenty-four feature films, and over 1,600 episodes of television. In 2019, Perry celebrated the historic opening of Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. He received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2021 Oscars, and the Governors Award at the 2020 Emmys. In September 2022, Mr. Perry released his twenty-seven-years-in-the-making passion project, A Jazzman’s Blues, with Netflix where the film spent several weeks on the US and global top ten list. His latest collaboration with Netflix, Six Triple Eight, tells the inspiring true story of the only all-Black, all-female battalion during World War II, and features an all-star cast including Oprah Winfrey, Ebony Obsidian, and Kerry Washington who is also an executive producer of the film.

Echo Brown is a storyteller from Cleveland, Ohio, who strives to inspire and provoke. She is a multi-talented artist who has written a celebrated one woman show, speeches for celebrities, and two critically acclaimed novels. Her debut novel, Black Girl Unlimited, and her sophomore novel, The Chosen One, have been covered in The New York Times, NPR, Esquire, and elsewhere. As a novelist, Echo writes mold-breaking, autobiographical young adult fiction that is infused with magical realism. She is currently based in Cleveland, Ohio, after relocating from Paris, France.