Issa Rae

Issa Rae is the creator, writer, and star of the HBO comedy series Insecure (2016-2021); the author of the memoir The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, published by 37 INK in 2015; and the creator and producer behind the YouTube series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and adjacent digital-first comedy work. She is the founder of HOORAE Media and the founder of the Color Creative production company. She has developed and produced multiple feature films and series including Project Greenlight, Sweet Life: Los Angeles, and adjacent slate work.

Her academic training was at Stanford University where she earned a degree in African and African American studies. She is also the co-founder of Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen, a Black-owned cafe chain in Los Angeles. She is based in Los Angeles.

Her mentor focus is the building of an independent-creator infrastructure that scales from web-series and digital-first work into broader television and feature work. The decisions about which platforms to engage at early career stages. The transition from self-distributed work to streamer-and-network relationships. The slow building of a production company that can support multiple projects in development simultaneously.

Her secondary mentor focus is the writing-and-acting practice at scale. The specific work of creating, writing, starring in, and producing a long-running series. The team-building work for writers' rooms. The performer-as-creator-as-producer career arc.

Mentees who book with Issa come from three primary populations. First: digital-first creators in the first three to seven years of creator-economy work considering transitions into traditional television and feature work. Second: writers and writer-performers building production companies. Third: Black women creators across film, television, and digital considering long-arc career planning.

Her style is candid and operational. She is open about the financial and operational specifics of building HOORAE and the adjacent businesses. She is candid about what worked at different stages of the work.

Outside the production-company work and the writing-and-acting practice she contributes selectively to industry-platform conversations and serves on advisory boards across the creator-economy and television-industry sectors.

She is a member of the Creative Arts and Media Circle network here as a senior member of the creator-economy-and-television subgroup, and the Social Entrepreneurship Builders network for the production-company and creator-business conversation.

Sessions are 45 minutes. The pre-session brief is a CV or summary of creative-and-business work to date, a sample of writing or production work, and a one-page document on the specific question. She reviews the material before the session. The session structure is practical. Mentees leave with detailed written notes and a specific action list.

Her transition from YouTube series creator to HBO show creator to production-company founder represents a specific contemporary trajectory that many Black women creators are now considering or navigating. The operational and creative decisions across each transition are part of what she discusses with mentees considering similar trajectories.

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl web series ran on YouTube before there was a clear pathway from YouTube creator to mainstream television. The early-stage platform decisions she made — what to release, on which platform, on what production schedule, with what financing stack — are part of the foundational operational work that produced her later career options.

Her HBO Insecure series ran for five seasons and centered young Black professional women in Los Angeles in a way that prestige television had not previously done with the same specificity. The series was an Emmy nominee in multiple categories and produced subsequent project opportunities across the broader television landscape.

Her HOORAE Media production company structure represents her broader institutional investment in the production-and-distribution infrastructure for Black women creators. The company has produced multiple feature films and series and has signed first-look deals with major studios and streamers.

Her Color Creative production company is specifically structured to develop work by writers from underrepresented backgrounds. The development-pipeline work is part of the broader institutional investment.

Her Hilltop Coffee plus Kitchen business represents the operating-business investment alongside the entertainment-industry work. The business operates in Los Angeles and represents her engagement with broader entrepreneurship beyond the entertainment industry.

Her writing-and-acting-and-producing-and-operating discipline across multiple businesses simultaneously is part of what she discusses with mentees considering similar multi-track operating-and-creative career structures.

Her engagement in the platform's Creative Arts and Media Circle as a senior member of the creator-economy-and-television subgroup, and the Social Entrepreneurship Builders network for the production-company and creator-business conversation, covers the range of her practice across writing, performing, producing, and operating-business work.

The creative-industries landscape continues to evolve in ways that affect Black women creators and creative-industries professionals specifically. The financing landscape for films, books, and adjacent creative-industries projects has shifted across the past decade. The platform landscape has shifted. The agent-and-publisher relationships have shifted. The mentor practice connects specifically to the senior-level craft questions and to the structural conditions that determine whether individual creative-industries careers progress at parity.

Her engagement with the platform mentor practice represents a deliberate investment in supporting Black women creators who are building multi-track operating-and-creative practices. The pipeline-into-production-company-founder-work for Black women creators specifically requires the kind of practical operational mentorship that her own career has been built on.

Her perspective on the contemporary entertainment-industry landscape is informed by direct operating experience across YouTube-creator-economy work, prestige television creation, production-company building, and broader business operations. The landscape has shifted significantly across the past decade. Sessions are 45 minutes; the pre-session brief is a CV, a sample of writing or production work, and a one-page document on the specific question.

The mentor practice on this platform is part of a broader commitment to structured, professional mentorship for African and African-diaspora women across the long arc of their careers. The platform's session-management infrastructure — booking, calendaring, payment (where applicable), pre-session briefs, in-session notes, and post-session follow-up — is designed to support sustained mentor-mentee relationships across multiple sessions for mentees who benefit from that continuity. Mentees are welcome to book initial single sessions, structured multi-session engagements, or ongoing relationships across longer career arcs. The structure follows the work.