“This year’s Top 100 features an elite group of executives entrusted with leadership at the highest levels of America’s corporations,” said L.P. Green, II, Publisher of Savoy Magazine. “Savoy is proud to feature professionals boldly redefining and representing leadership in their respective organizations through the Top 100 list.”

Selection of the “Top 100 Blacks in Corporate America” begins by examining the landscape of spheres of influence impacting Savoy’s readership including: corporate sector influence, scholastic achievement, career growth, community outreach and recognition. The information received from over 500 prospective candidates in diverse fields was pre-screened by the selection committee. The selection committee includes the Savoy editorial board and community leaders with representatives from the academic and business arenas. The committee reviewed information on executives in human resources, information, real estate, finance, investment banking, diversity, foundations, procurement, business development, marketing, sales, health care, manufacturing and legal. After reviewing all of the profiles, the field of candidates was narrowed to the 2012 “Top 100 Most Influential” listing based upon their exemplary record of accomplishments and influence while working to better their community and inspire others.

For more information regarding the Savoy Top 100 visit www.savoynetwork.com/top100 to view the full 2012 Top 100 Most Influential Blacks in Corporate America full listing along with individual profiles of each executive. Connect with Savoy via  Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn.

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Savoy Magazine is a national publication covering the power, substance and style of African American lifestyle. From entertainment to sports, business to politics, design to style, Savoy is a cultural catalyst for the African-American community that showcases and drives positive dialogue on and about Black culture. Savoy is published quarterly and distributed via subscriptions and newsstands worldwide.

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Spencer, 39, was considered the favorite to win the Academy Award for playing an outspoken maid in the 1960s drama about African-Americans who work for rich white families in Mississippi in the early years of the civil rights era.

Spencer, whose mother was a maid and who had never been nominated before for an Academy Award, got a long standing ovation from the audience as she nervously walked to the stage to accept her award.

“Thank you Academy for putting me with the hottest guy in the room,” she said, referring to the golden Oscar statuette.

Fighting back tears and thanking her family and fellow cast members, she said, “I’m wrapping up, I’m sorry, I am freaking out. Thank you world.”

Spencer’s night however was slightly dampened by the loss for fellow “The Help” actress Viola Davis, who was beaten on Sunday in the lead actress race by Meryl Streep for “The Iron Lady.”

But a national domestic workers group said Spencer’s win was a “profound victory” for maids everywhere.

“We thank her for lifting up the stories of domestic workers and the dignity of the work,” National Domestic Workers Alliance co-founder Ai-jen Poo said in a statement.

Known to television audiences for her role on the sitcom “Ugly Betty,” Spencer grew up in a family of seven children whose mother worked as a maid.

Spencer’s film career was dominated in the previous decade by small parts in films such as “Legally Blonde 2,” “Spider-Man,” “Bad Santa” and “Beauty Shop.”

But her career took a dramatic turn when she joined the cast of “The Help,” a tale of a white writer who persuades black maids in the U.S. deep South to tell their stories.

Spencer played Minny Jackson, a woman who refuses to be cowed and who wreaks revenge on a cruel white employer by serving up a disgusting pie.

The film was adapted from the best-selling Kathryn Stockett novel of the same name and became a cultural touchstone and box office sensation, grossing more than $200 million at the global box office.

Spencer told reporters backstage that she was a benefactor of all of the advances made by real life African-Americans since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

“I’m very humbled because I get to stand here and accept this award and I haven’t really done anything,” she said.

“I hope it’s a hallmark of more for young aspiring actresses of color. I hope that in some way I can be some kind of beacon of hope, especially because I am not the typical Hollywood beauty,” she added.

Although Perry, 42, is far from a critics’ darling, he has a fiercely loyal fan base and regularly tops U.S. box office charts with the films he writes, directs, produces and stars in. He was named Forbes’ highest-paid man in entertainment in 2011, above Jerry Bruckheimer and Steven Spielberg.

In “Good Deeds”, which opens in U.S. movie theaters on Friday, Perry plays Wesley Deeds, a successful CEO controlled by his domineering mother until an unexpected friendship inspires him to rebel.

Reuters spoke with Perry about how he felt exposed playing Deeds, his evolution as an actor, and his role in the film adaptation later this year of James Patterson’s crime thriller “I, Alex Cross.”

Q: You’ve said playing the role of Wesley Deeds was a scary experience. How so?

A: “I’m used to having a costume. I’m used to having something to hide behind. This is the first time I feel like a lot of my life is on the screen. People don’t really know a whole lot about me on purpose because I live my life very privately, but Wesley Deeds is extremely close to who I am.”

Q: Church and Christian religion are usually themes in your films but not in “Good Deeds.” Was that a conscious choice?

A: “No, it wasn’t. I’m going to speak in a multitude of voices in my career. The message is still just as powerful. The message is just about living your own life. This life is given to you, it’s a gift from God and you have to live it to the fullest.”

Q: This is your first film categorized as a romantic drama. Any plans to try other genres of film?

A: “Sci-fi. I love sci-fi with a passion but, on the budgets I’m given, it’s pretty difficult to do. But I’ll take a stab at it in the next couple of years.”

Q: You shared your story of being physically and sexually abused as a child on Oprah in 2010. How has your life and work changed as a result?

A: “More people had an opportunity to see me for who I am. I know that, had I not done that, I would not have been able to do this film or ‘Alex Cross’ where I’m more raw or exposed. Only someone who’s been through it can understand this, but you become ashamed, you just want to hide and everything is a little embarrassing. It’s been very freeing.”

Q: Some critics have reacted negatively to your films and characters. How do you reconcile negative reviews from critics with positive reactions from your fans?

A: “I don’t think about critics at all, honestly. I learned very early on that critics are critics. They’re people with opinion. If you can’t relate to it, I don’t think you should speak to it. I’ve learned to just stay on purpose. I look for truth (in criticism). If it’s vitriolic I have no interest in reading it but if it’s something that challenges me to grow, I’m open to it. I’ve had some very harsh critics but there have been 5 or 6 times where I’ve heard something and I’ve said, “That, I’ll take.”

Q: Some people have expressed disappointment that Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer are nominated for Academy Awards for their portrayal of maids in “The Help.” What do you think of the backlash?

A: “Those kinds of criticisms are rooted in ignorance and if we knew our history a little more, we’d have a better respect for it. My mother was one of those women. She wasn’t a domestic worker but she worked at a Jewish Community Center. She would leave us and go take care of rich Jewish children all day. I understand those women, they have a story that needs to be told.”

Q: What can we expect from you in ‘Alex Cross,’ your first starring role in film that’s not your own?

A: “I wasn’t trying to be Morgan Freeman as Alex Cross. I just did the best job I can do as who I am. The movie just tested in front of an audience and there were people in the focus group who said, ‘I just came to see if he could pull it off,’ and they were blown away. People think they’ve got me all pegged. In Hollywood, once you get your lane, that’s it. They don’t want you to change lanes or shift gears. I think it’s going to surprise people. I think they’re going to love it.”

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio said it would merge administrative, programming and some personnel costs, as well as expand community partnerships and fundraising opportunities with the Cincinnati Museum Center.

The Freedom Center , which opened its doors in 2004, was facing possible closure at the end of this year if it did not fill a $1.5 million funding gap,

Details are still being hammered out, but the initial overview of the merger’s financial aspects looks positive , according to Elizabeth Pierce, the Museum Center’s vice president of marketing and communications.

“We are entering a phase of due diligence,” she said. “We have some initial analysis that allows us to think it was the right thing to do. We are now going to validate those assumptions.”

That process will take about four to six months to complete, she said.

Now that word of the likely merger is out, the two organizations can begin the process of working with national, regional and local partners to help raise money and support, Pierce said.

The Freedom Center has had trouble in recent years garnering support from some donors because of the perception it might not remain open.

“We are not doing to do this alone,” said Douglass McDonald, president and CEO of the Museum Center. “Part of this process is going to be going to people in the community and establishing partnerships.”

Almost immediately after opening in 2004, the Freedom Center began to struggle financially, eventually laying off several staff members and taking other measures to cut costs.

The museum is directly across the Ohio River from the slave state of Kentucky, and Cincinnati was a major stop on the “underground railroad” that helped slaves go north to Canada.

The museum also has an exhibit examining contemporary slavery, which includes such practices as forced child labor and sex trafficking.

Since its inception, museum leaders, including former Procter & Gamble Co. CEO John Pepper, who is co-chair of its board of directors, hoped to make the facility a national museum.

If that had happened, the federal government would take over the building and its accompanying $3 million operating expense — although if the planned merger goes ahead, it would not now be necessary.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity for our two iconic institutions and for the men, women and children we serve,” Pepper said.

“Having examined the case for joining together, I am convinced that this combination of talent and efficiencies will dramatically expand the impact of the Freedom Center’s mission, locally and nationwide. Our two institutions will do things together neither of us could do alone.”

Cincinnati City Councilman Christopher Smitherman, who is also president of the Cincinnati Chapter of the NAACP, had criticized the Freedom Center for “not living up to its potential.”

He said the museum backed off its original intention to tell the story of African-American slavery for a “smorgasbord of conversation around freedom,” welcomed the news. “I view the merger as a very positive step for the region,” he said. (Editing By Tim Gaynor)

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