BET on Him

Brandweek,  Oct 30, 2000  by Sarah Heim

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No challenge is too great for Scott Mills, BET.com's hardworking and highly motivated COO.

Sometimes being the middle child has its advantages. Just ask 32-year-old Scott Mills, chief operating officer at BET.com, the online branch of Washington-based BET Holdings II, Inc. Although Mills acknowledges the traumatic aspects of being sandwiched between two brothers, he also credits his middle birth order as the reason why he's an overachiever.

"When I was growing up I knew I wanted to do something exceptional," Mills says about his childhood on Long Island, New York. "I knew that whatever it was, it was going to have to be challenging."

And so it is. On any given week, Mills is putting in upwards of 80 hours in the office, working to maintain BET.com's dominant presence as the most comprehensive Internet portal for African Americans. And considering the deals in the pipeline at the eight-month-young site, like this month's acquisition of New York-based hip-hop site 360HIPHOP.com, it seems that Mills' schedule won't be changing any time soon. While this leaves little time for such non-work pleasures as hiking and spending time with his "wonderful girlfriend," Mills says he happily anticipates BET.com's exciting and dynamic future.

Not surprisingly, making challenging decisions is one of Mills' specialities. After receiving his bachelor of science degree in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1990, Mills worked as the deputy treasurer of Philadelphia and then as a vice president for the investment banking firm of Lehman Brothers. When cable TV pioneer and BET Holdings founder and CEO Robert Johnson asked Mills to switch tracks and join the parent company as senior vice president for development in September 1997, Mills, unsatisfied at Lehman Brothers, knew it was an offer he couldn't refuse--despite the pay cut.

"I asked myself, am I going to be a slave to income or am I going to take a risk?" What eased the decision, he adds, was the opportunity to work with Johnson, "a consummate and master entrepreneur."

When Mills joined BET, he didn't even have a cable TV connection at home. By summer '99, however, Mills found himself immersed not just in cable, but in developing, implementing and ultimately running the day-to-day operations at BET.com, which launched in February 2000.

A joint venture between BET Holdings II, Inc., Microsoft, Liberty Digital, News Corporation and USA Networks, BET.com received an astounding $35 million in initial funding. "Our market timing was about as close to dead on as we could get," says Mills. "If we'd gotten there any earlier we would have been waiting for the market to catch up. Later, the market imploded and wiped most of the people off the map."

Mills hopes that the Internet, and in particular BET.com, will help drive change within the African-American community. Although commentary on the "digital divide" has dominated the press, Mills notes, "What we really see BET doing is providing African Americans with the tools to address other major divides like education, career, health or home ownership." By bridging some of these underlying divisions, he feels the digital divide itself will be "drastically reduced."

It's a challenge Mills' relishes. "While the end goal might not always be visible," he says, "what's important is that you put yourself on a path that allows you to do exceptional things."

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