Pearlena Igbokwe

Pearlena Igbokwe is Chairman, Television Studios, NBC Entertainment & Peacock Scripted. She oversees NBC Entertainment, including scripted, unscripted, late-night, live events and specials, all scripted originals for Peacock and Universal Studio Group (USG).

Igbokwe leads the teams responsible for notable programs such as Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Hacks, The Day of the Jackal,  Dick Wolf’s enormously successful Law & Order, One Chicago and FBI-branded series, The Paper, All Her Fault, St. Denis Medical, A Man on the Inside, The Four Seasons, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, America’s Got Talent, The Americas and The Voice.

Since 2020, Igbokwe has served as Chairman of USG and its world-class library of television series from Universal Television, UCP, Universal International Studios and Universal Television Alternative Studio. The four television studios have produced more than 3,000 hours of programming airing or streaming around the globe. Under Igbokwe's leadership, USG has had #1 shows on Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Peacock and Hulu, as well as NBC, Sky and CBS.

She and her team champion many of television's most influential storytellers, including Nick Antosca, Greg Daniels, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, David Heyman, Nahnatchka Khan, Seth MacFarlane, Debra Martin Chase, Lorne Michaels, Sue Naegle, Gareth Neame, Jordan Peele, Julie Plec, Amy Poehler, Michael Schur, Darren Star, Kevin Williamson and Dick Wolf, among numerous others. 

Previously, Igbokwe was President, Universal Television, where she oversaw creative development, casting and production and led the division to new heights with record production output. Some of her development highlights include Russian Doll, The Gilded Age, New Amsterdam, The Bold Type, Good Girls and Dick Wolf’s FBI-branded series, among numerous other notable projects. In a highly competitive landscape, Igbokwe was able to secure pickups for her projects on every major streaming service, a variety of premium cable outlets and every broadcast network. 

Before her studio role, Igbokwe served as Executive Vice President, Drama Programming for NBC Entertainment, where she developed the top-rated new broadcast dramas for three out of her four years in the role (The Blacklist, Blindspot and This Is Us). Previously, she worked at Showtime for 20 years, where she was involved in developing the pilot and overseeing the first five seasons of Dexter, Showtime’s most popular series ever. She also developed and supervised the Emmy Award-winning and critically acclaimed original series Nurse Jackie and developed the pilot for Masters of Sex. In addition, she shepherded Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union, Damon Wayans' The Underground, and the television adaptation of the hit feature film Barbershop. She was also instrumental in the five-season run of the hit Showtime series Soul Food, a two-time NAACP Image Award winner for Best Drama Series.

She serves on the Peabody Awards Board of Directors, the Friends Board of the Saban Community Clinic, the Alliance for Children’s Rights Board and the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors. 

Igbokwe has a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University and an MBA from Columbia University. She was born in Nigeria and resides in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.