Darryl Jefferson

A graduate of the PMHS Class of 1989, Darryl Jefferson a is a 14-time Emmy Award-winning television executive, mentor and industry leader. With much of his career spent in the intricate production of multiple Olympic Games telecasts for NBC Sports, Darryl has been a part of the technical team in 12 of the 20 most-watched televised events in U.S. history. 

As a student at Rutgers, Jefferson was elected as the university’s first African-American student body president. He began his television career in children’s programming, first as an intern with Linda Ellerbee’s Lucky Duck Productions, creators of the children’s news magazine NickNews. After college, his first job was as a production assistant at the Children’s Television Workshop on the popular show GhostWriter. A number of freelance production jobs followed, until Jefferson was chosen to manage the sprawling entertainment plant at the new Chelsea Piers complex in Manhattan — six film and television stages, where such shows as Law & Order and Spin City as well as feature films like Big Night and The Preacher’s Wife were created. In 2002, Jefferson moved into television network operations with Lifetime Television, directing all aspects of both traditional and the newly-emerging field of digital post-production services.

Jefferson joined NBC Sports Group in 2008, in support of the Beijing Summer Olympics, and has worked with NBC on every Olympics since. At the Pyeongchang, Rio, Sochi, London, and Vancouver Games he was the driving force behind the “Highlights Factory” — an integrated global asset management system that allows staff to view, exchange, edit, submit, and publish digital video from both live feeds and 300,000+ hours of archival content from anywhere in the world. 

Today Jefferson oversees all post operations for the entire NBC Sports Group, including 24/7 post production editing, graphics (on-air and pre-production), post production audio, asset management and digital workflow for all NBC Sports properties (Olympics, NFL, NHL, NASCAR, Horse Racing, and others). In 2014, Jefferson developed a Technical Apprentice Program (TAP) to encourage and develop the next generation of technologists, preparing its members for the endless new waves of exciting and daring digital technologies, and — just as importantly — ensuring that they represent a broad diversity of cultures and perspectives. As a highly valued and sought-after mentor within the NBC community, Jefferson was named as the founding leader of NBC’s Black Employee Network.