Speaker Keith Wooten

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Keith Wooten

Director, Creative Development

Audible

Keith Wooten is a Los Angeles native who left for Atlanta in the mid-nineties to attend college and begin his entertainment career. While a freshman at Clark Atlanta University, he began interning in the music business, eventually becoming an assistant in the Video Production and Marketing departments at LaFace Records, a record label owned by LA Reid and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds. While working and attending school, Keith graduated from Georgia State University with a
Bachelors in Marketing.

With a slow NYC job market post the 9/11 terror attacks, Keith took a leap of faith and moved to New York, attempting to further his career in music marketing. As fate would have it, Keith resumed his marketing role, working once again with LA Reid at Arista Records. From there he would grow into a mid-level marketing executive working for labels Jive Records, Virgin Records/Capitol Music Group, Def Jam Recordings, and Bad Boy Records. He would oversee the launch of albums from musicians such as Usher, Outkast, TLC, Pink, Ciara, and Janet Jackson.

After the music industry continued to take a downturn in the late 2000s, Keith eventually decided to leave the music business and segue into television. However, the transition would not be an easy feat. Getting his foot in the door meant starting over as an EA in Original Programming at BET Networks, a network known for creating content that uplifted Black people and their culture. Though he was back at the proverbial low end of the totem pole, he knew at the end of the day,
he still made it on the pole and could move up from there. Never afraid of a challenge, Keith made use of the skills he established in the music industry and became a valuable player on the BET content team. Over the next few years, Keith would once again work his way up to the role of Director of Development.

While at BET, Keith would develop scripted and unscripted programming including the docu-series Gucci Mane &; Keyshia Ka'oir: The Mane Event; Nellyville, starring Grammy award-winning rapper and family man, Nelly; and It's a Mann's World, starring gospel’s favorite couple, David and Tamela Mann. The music competition formats he handled include Sunday Best, the #1 TV Gospel series for the past eight years; Chasing Destiny, starring Kelly Rowland; and Apollo Live, the legendary theater’s amateur talent completion starring Gladys Knight. Other formats that Keith has overseen include 50 Central, a late-night sketch show hosted by rapper, actor, producer, 50 Cent; Face Value, a comedic game show starring Deon Cole and Tiffany Haddish, and Black Card Revoked, another hilarious game show starring comedian, Tony Rock. Keith developed the crime series Criminals at Work and American Gangster: Trap Queens for BET+. On the scripted side, he handled the award-winning limited series, The New Edition Story and worked on the first season (and coined the title) of the drama series Being Mary Jane, starring Gabrielle Union.

In Dec 2021, after growing with BET for 10+ years, Keith embarked on the next phase of his career in content creation by accepting a position as Director of Development at Audible, the leading creator and provider of premium audio storytelling. In his role, he develops and oversees fiction and non-fiction projects for a range of audio series including fictionalized dramas, non-fiction biographies series, the first audio-only music competition in the US, as well as a number of talk-based podcasts. He has a number of projects coming in 2023 with development production partners that include Higher Ground, Brooklyn Media, At Will Media, Flavor Unit Entertainment, and Orion Pictures.