Juliette Powell, former Miss Canada and MuchMusic host turned tech critic, remembered for challenging biases

Globe and Mail

18 hours ago

Juliette Powell, who once commanded attention as the host of MuchMusic's live dance party Electric Circus and later as a respected commentator on the societal risks of advanced technology, has died at 54.
The former television host, author and New York University faculty member was found dead at home on June 3, said Art Kleiner, the co-author of her 2023 book The AI Dilemma. He said the cause of death was acute bacterial meningitis.
It came as a shock to many friends who say Ms. Powell's energetic personality and drive to shatter barriers defined her life up until the end.
'She was obviously brilliant,' Mr. Kleiner said Wednesday in a phone interview. 'And she had a charismatic personality.'
Many Canadians will remember Ms. Powell's radiance, captivating smile and towering figure best from her role as ringleader on Electric Circus, where she mingled with the show's fashionable dancers as they moved and grooved to the latest 1990s club hits.
Her experience in the spotlight actually began years earlier after she moved from her birthplace in Manhattan to Montreal with her French-Canadian mother.
As a young adult, she entered local beauty pageants in hopes that she could challenge racial biases that were prevalent in the industry. She placed second in the Miss Montreal Pageant and became the first Black woman to win Miss Canada in 1989.
The recognition opened doors to TV opportunities and Ms. Powell was eager to walk through many of them.
In 1992, she joined Montreal music video channel MusiquePlus as a video jockey and the bilingual host of its weekly dance show Bouge de là!.
The station's founder, Moses Znaimer, said Wednesday in a post on X that he was struck by the young Ms. Powell's 'sass' and 'smarts,' though he couldn't recall if she challenged him for the job or he offered it to her first.
Ms. Powell held onto her TV gig while studying finance and business at McGill University. Eventually, she moved to Toronto, where Mr. Znaimer handed her the reins of Electric Circus, which had been hosted for years by Monika Deol.
Both women were beauties suited for television, and many former Much staffers acknowledge Ms. Powell had big shoes to fill. She did it with her own trademark style, frequently wrapping her long arms around people she interviewed as she floated through the open studio in downtown Toronto with her wireless microphone.
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'You have to be warm, you have to give of yourself,' said Tony Young, also known as Much VJ Master T.
'She came in there and handled it famously.'
When Nam Kiwanuka joined the MuchMusic team in 1999 as an intern on Rap City, Ms. Powell was already on a roll. Her weekly presence on Friday night TV, and the bilingual music video show French Kiss, had made her a household name.
So Ms. Kiwanuka was surprised to learn that her office desk would be right next to Ms. Powell's at 299 Queen St. W., which made her a frequent observer of her mentor's enigmatic appeal.
'She was one of those people that when you spoke to her, you were the only person in the room,' Ms. Kiwanuka said.
'There was an energy about her; she was very confident. Whenever stars came in, they seemed to be more enamoured with her.'
Powell signed off from Electric Circus in 2000 by popping a bottle of champagne on-air as the dancers surrounded her. Together, they rushed onto the streets outside the studio, everyone bobbing to the groove of a disco beat.
'I will never, ever forget this,' Ms. Powell said while clutching armfuls of bouquets and stuffed animals.
She assured viewers she wasn't leaving TV entirely. Her next stop was as a business reporter at news channel CablePulse 24, now known as CP24, a role she insisted wasn't so different 'because money is very sexy, too.'
However, Ms. Powell would eventually drift away from her role as a TV personality, and friends say she became accustomed to a more private life.
She founded media consulting company Powell International Entertainment Inc. and took advisory roles at the United Nations, World Economic Forum and the World Bank.
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In 2009, she wrote her first book, 33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business Using Social Networking.
By then, she had already found a new calling in the fast-evolving world of technology, eventually becoming a voice for the societal risks of a world dominated by artificial intelligence.
In 2014, she met Mr. Kleiner through a mutual friend who felt they could be fruitful collaborators on the ethics of tech. Mr. Kleiner said the intellectual spark between them happened quickly and he saw an opportunity to work together.
'She commands the room just in the way she shows up,' he said, pointing to YouTube videos of her conversations about unconscious biases in technology, data ownership and privacy.
The pair published the 2023 book The AI Dilemma: 7 Principles for Responsible Technology, which explored the risks and misuses of machine learning. It expanded on her interests in the intersection of media, technology and ethics, a topic she taught as part of NYU's faculty in the interactive telecommunications program.
Last year, they founded Kleiner Powell International, an AI consultancy firm for business clients, one of several projects he said Ms. Powell was working on up until her final days.
'Everyone that I talked to had some future thing they planned with Juliette.'