Sharlene McDuffie, also known affectionately as “Bubbles” or “Shar” by some close friends and family, was born in Southeast Washington, D.C. attending St. Francis Xavier Elementary School until eighth grade and thereafter attended the Academy of Notre Dame where she excelled.
Upon graduation, she attended the University of Maryland College Park, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Radio, Television and Film Studies. Sometime thereafter, she continued her studies and received an Executive Master of Science in Technology Management from Columbia University in New York.
McDuffie was a pioneer for Black women in cable television. She started her career at Home Team Sports/Baltimore Orioles Television where she was promoted from an intern to the Traffic Manager. She won awards for pioneering programming management systems for the network, and was selected for the Corporate Leadership Track, which she completed. Afterwards, she went to Bell Atlantic Video Services, where she rose up the ranks in Management of Programming and Content Delivery, assisting with the company’s merger with DIRECTV.
McDuffie, ever adventurous, then took a position with U.S. West Cable Services in Denver, Colorado. There, she negotiated over seventy cable programming contracts with cable channels and earned the President’s Award in 1998 for Outstanding Performance.
This was just what her friends and loved ones would have expected from her. McDuffie always gave her personal best. Thereafter, she left Denver to go to New York City, where she worked managing the accounts of cable giants such as CNBC, MSNBC, and PAX TV for Invision, Inc. Here, she became a Software Developer for the proprietary management software used to measure and project advertising revenue and overall quality assurance.
Making the New York City area her home—specifically Staten Island—she went to work for Viacom, Inc. one of the world’s largest cable conglomerates, and again took increasingly more challenging positions in advertising, negotiating and managing both domestic and international contracts. McDuffie devised money-saving techniques at Viacom to increase revenue and decrease waste in her field, for which she continued to win awards. She conducted business analyses and recruited and managed high-functioning, collaborative teams, something that came naturally to her. Working with MTV, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, and Netflix, she coordinated advertising and new product releases, demonstrating her intellect, her tenacity, and her immense professional acumen.
Sadly, illness plagued McDuffie in the last few years and that curtailed her life severely, as she had to stop working and focus on her recovery. As always, she exhibited great courage and poise in the face of her medical challenges. Most of her family and friends did not realize how ill McDuffie was, because she kept her smile and her dignity through it all.
To celebrate her memory and inspire students,a scholarship fund in her name was established to support students majoring in the Bachelor of Arts in Public Communications.
McDuffie lived a full life. She was generous and caring, and she always had a positive outlook on life. The word “can’t” was not in her vocabulary—if it was possible to do, she did. While her friends and family mourn her passing, they rejoice the time they had with her, and all she gave to the world.
Please consider donating to the Sharlene Elizabeth McDuffie Memorial Fund.