How Women Are Leading Media’s Reinvention

I do my best thinking when I run. I love to run. So why don’t I do it more? Where to start? Working full-time for decades while raising two kids, with most of my career rooted in office culture before remote work was even a concept. That meant late nights, early wake-ups, work events, and heels that wreck your feet, plus years of jet lag from endless travel. My family knows all the personal sacrifices I’ve made.

But a recent run got me thinking. It was sparked by New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger’s essay, A Free People Need a Free Press, originally delivered at Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute. Sulzberger writes passionately about the existential threats facing a free press, from economic collapse to political intimidation, and how journalism must stand as a bulwark in a time of profound civic deterioration.

His message resonated deeply. My career has spanned legacy media institutions, each one in need of all the “re-” words: reinvention, revitalization, recalibration, and most of all, revenue transformation. We can’t protect a free press unless we also make it a viable business. These institutions must be sustainable, not charitable.

We are at an inflection point unlike any in media history. Journalism is under siege, attacked by our politics, by the economy and by technological change. As Sulzberger notes, a third of newsroom jobs have vanished in 15 years, and newspapers are shuttering at a rate of two per week. The attention economy is controlled by tech platforms that are indifferent, if not outright hostile, to quality journalism. At the same time, public trust in media is near historic lows, and the financial models that once supported enterprise journalism are unraveling.

On the business side, media leaders are battling declining advertising revenues, rising content costs, platform dependency, and the relentless pressure to scale and innovate amid economic uncertainty. On the editorial side, journalists face growing threats, from political interference to online harassment. They are confronting the complex mandate to maintain editorial independence while navigating cultural polarization, disinformation, and now, generative AI.

And yet, amid this upheaval, something remarkable is happening: many of the world’s leading media companies are now being led by women. CEOs at AP, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, The Guardian, Hearst, The New York Times, NPR, PBS, Politico, X, and yes, TIME are all women.

What do we share? Quite a lot.

We are operators. We’ve been responsible for P&Ls. Many of us came up through commercial roles: CROs, CFOs, COOs, CCOs, CBOs. We’ve run companies through digital disruption and audience fragmentation. We’ve moved legacy organizations from print to digital, from linear to streaming, from traditional to social, and now, into the AI era. We’ve done the work not once, but repeatedly. We’ve operated through cycles of boom and bust, advertising highs and market contractions. Several of us have worked for high-profile owners who acquired these institutions not just for passion but as forms of civic responsibility.

Some will label this a “glass cliff” moment, one where women are being appointed to leadership roles during times of crisis or downturn, situations where the risk of failure is high. But this doesn’t feel like a glass cliff. There are too many of us. We’re not symbolic hires or last-ditch efforts. We’re experienced, prepared, and yes, resilient. We didn’t arrive at these roles by accident. We’ve earned the opportunity to lead, and we are doing so in one of the most consequential moments in media history. We’re not here to disrupt. We’re here to rebuild, smarter, stronger, and more sustainable businesses.

I’m writing this to recognize this moment and to recognize the women leading it.

To the men who supported me, mentored me, or made space for me—thank you. To the women who came before me, especially pioneers like Katharine Graham, who shattered ceilings in eras far less welcoming, we are standing on your shoulders. And to the women rising behind me, I see you.

Oh—and this summer? I plan to run more. I do my best thinking out there.