About Me
Ebony Reed is an award-winning journalist, media executive, and nationally sought-after speaker whose perspective is shaped by her lived experience and journalistic work across economic mobility, personal loss during the pandemic, leadership reinvention and the evolving media landscape. She is Chief Strategy Officer at The Marshall Project and co-author of the bestselling book, Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap (HarperCollins, 2024), a deeply reported examination of the wealth gap based on nearly 400 interviews.
Her career spans The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, and major metro newsrooms, where she has led editorial, audience & community, business strategy and sales across various teams responsible for producing journalism, audience engagement, revenue development, partnerships, and oversaw P&L tracking. She is known for sharp insight, engaging storytelling, and conversations that connect leadership, media, and economic opportunity.
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Terez A. Paylor endowed scholarships
Terez A. Paylor was known and loved by many as a talented sports journalist. He was Ebony's longtime partner, and passed away in 2021 at the age of 37. He covered high school, college and professional sports for The Kansas City Star before joining Yahoo!Sports in 2018. Terez also hosted a weekly radio program on 610 Sports Radio, "The Terez Paylor Show. He was a selector for the distinguished Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Two scholarships honor Terez’s legacy - the Terez A. Paylor scholarship at Howard University, which is an endowment at Terez’s alma mater. The other is the PowerMizzou Journalism Alumni Scholarship in memory of Terez Paylor, which is also an endowment at my alma mater, the Missouri School of Journalism.