Barbara Lamont is president and CEO of Calls Plus, a Lafayette, Louisiana-based multilingual contact center that provides customizable communications services including: school safety hotlines, case intake and counseling, nurse triage, end-to-end patient management, trend analysis, information and referral services, and maintenance work-order generation and dispatch. 

An award-winning journalist and pioneer in broadcasting and satellite communications, Barbara has worked at ABC and CBS News networks and served as director of the Nigerian Television Authority’s Network News for two years. In 1988 she founded WCCL-TV in New Orleans, becoming the first African-American woman to own a U.S. television station. 

Barbara has served on the alumni board at the Kennedy School of Government, Williams College’s major gift committee, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the University of New Orleans’ Business Higher Education Council. For 10 years she chaired the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board Infrastructure Committee. 

Barbara has a bachelor’s degree in international law from Sarah Lawrence College, a joint master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s Business School and Kennedy School of Government and is fluent in six languages. She is a recipient of Sarah Lawrence College’s alumnae achievement award as well as the prestigious national Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. She has been an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. A licensed private pilot and author of “City People: Notes from the Urban Battlefront,” Barbara has four children and seven grandchildren.