North Star: Soledad O’Brien On Listening, Point of View, Stories, Fairness and Values

“As an organization and an individual, you have to stick to your North Star,” Soledad O’Brien, founder and CEO of Soledad O’Brien Productions, told a virtual convening of two cohorts of Take The Lead’s 50 Women in Journalism Can Change the World.

“The story of one’s arc of one’s life is to figure out what your values are,” says O’Brien, award-winning journalist, speaker, author and philanthropist who anchors and produces the Hearst Television political magazine program, “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien.”

True Believer: CEO, Founder on Guiding Leaders Through A DEI Reckoning

From the age of five, Jennifer Brown was performing. On stage, she was singing and dancing as a child growing up in Southern California in a musical family, then as an adult pursuing a singing career.

“I love the adrenaline, I love being under pressure,” says Brown, the CEO and founder of Jennifer Brown Consulting, a global strategic leadership and diversity consulting firm that coaches business leaders on critical issues of talent and workplace strategy. “Which is good because I have three 90-minute keynotes online today,” Brown says.

Going “On the Record” About How Sexual Harassment and Violence Erase Women and Thwart Their Leadership Intentions

Issue 141— September 7, 2020

Drew Dixon’s resume includes Former Vice President of A&R at Arista Records, a former director of A&R at Def Jam Recordings, the former general manager of John Legend’s label Homeschool Records, and the former manager of recording artist Estelle. She produced more hit records than I can count with artists you know. Dixon is the founder of the independent label The Ninth Floor, the tech-enabled beauty start-up EverythingDid, and the co-creator of the TV series Reciprocity.

Definitely an ambitious and intentional woman who knew from her teenage years that working in the music business was her dream.

The SumGloria FeldtSeptember 7, 2020Sexual Harassment, Career Path, Women In Music, Women Leaders, Mental Health, Workplace CultureComment

Read On: 10 New Books By Women Leaders For Your September Reading List

September is Literacy Month and also typically back to school month. But with school on hold, virtual, hybrid or postponed, we can still enjoy a robust reading month. And what possibilities you have with great new books by, for and about women and the issues and concerns facing all of us.

Take The Lead frequently highlights the latest books from women leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers and doers. It’s why Take The Lead has launched a new Book Club and why Take The Lead includes great reads from our leadership, staff and partners here.

Update: COVID Infects 25 Years Of Progress After Women’s Rights = Human Rights Speech

In 1995, Madonna, Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson topped the pop charts. A new music option called DVD launched. Windows 95 and Ebay were introduced.

And Hillary Clinton gave a world-turning speech in Beijing, China.

“If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women’s rights. And women’s rights are human rights,” First Lady of the United States Clinton spoke to a crowd of 1,500 on September 5, 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women by the United Nations Development Program.

Calm Down: 5 Steps for Leaders To Reduce Employee Work Stress

How can women leaders deal with the issue of workplace stress among their employees?

Nearly every employee today is experiencing work stress, perhaps in varying degrees and in different forms. This is especially true given the current global health crisis brought on by COVID-19 and the resultant changes in today's workforce.

Even prior to COVID, a 2018 Fidelity Investments survey found that in America, the workplace has been deemed the top stress factor among employees. In the U.S. workplace stress is responsible for losses of up to $300 billion.

Thank goodness Kamala Harris is ambitious, and that’s not all she is

Issue 140 — August 31, 2020

It was so predictable. Any woman who had the audacity to run for president must be too ambitious, said the wagging tongues and talking heads.

Ambitious when applied to a woman becomes an epithet. Applied to a man, it isn’t just a compliment, it’s an assumption.

Inspired: Author Heather Cabot Unpacks CBD Innovators’ Paths

“Just start.”

That is author and renowned journalist Heather Cabot’s advice to entrepreneurs as well as her own motto.

With her latest book out this month, The New Chardonnay: The Unlikely Story of How Marijuana Went Mainstream, hitting a bestseller list on Amazon recently, Cabot is taking stock of her successes as well as looking for what she will tackle next.

Conventional Women: Non-Partisan RNC, DNC Highlights of Women Leaders

The virtual national conventions for both the Democratic and Republican parties were unprecedented and historic in many ways.

Due to COVID-19, there were no in-person gatherings of throngs of delegates, speakers and supporters wearing funny hats and carrying signs. The handling of videos, recorded vignettes plus live and recorded speeches lent a tone of slick production values to both recent weeks of conventions.

Silver Lining: Inventor, Founder Creates Urgent Solution and Fulfills Her Dream

Lori Greiner, the highly successful investor on ABC-TV’s “Shark Tank,” can offer tips and also learn lessons from Zeynep Ekemen, the creator of Silver Defender, a stretchable film that protects any and all surfaces from germs and viruses.

Ekemen, or Z, as everyone calls her, was at her early morning “Breakfast Club” with business friends in a local Fort Lee, New Jersey coffee shop in 2018, when one of her friends returned from the men’s room grossed out by what he saw.

Seriously Unfinished Business: The 100th Anniversary of the Suffrage Amendment Didn't Turn Out as Planned, but We Can Make It Turn Out Better

Issue 139 — August 23, 2020

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock in your quarantine, or have put yourself on a strict social media and television diet to get away from the political talking heads, you know this year, 2020, is the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving women across the U.S. the right to vote.

Thousands of women’s organizations had planned celebrations leading up to this auspicious anniversary, some on the various significant dates leading up to August 26, the anniversary of when the amendment became formally part of the Constitution.

47 Years of Women’s Equality Day: 5 Ways To Celebrate Now And Why

Forty-seven years ago Bella Abzug’s push to make August 26 Women’s Equality Day a national day of recognition became reality. It is still not a federal holiday. While Americans have yet to reach gender and racial equity, Take The Lead’s mission continues to be equality, equity and fairness for all women.

According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, less than half of Americans, or 49%, “say granting women the right to vote has been the most important milestone in advancing the position of women in the country.”

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