Why I’m Leaving Fortune… and Owning my Power

by Pattie Sellers

I’m leaving Fortune. For all of you who have read my stories, joined me at Fortune Most Powerful Women Summits, and befriended and coached me over the decades: a huge thank you! After 36 years at Fortune and 20+ years building the world’s premier community of women leaders (that is MPW), it’s time to move on.

In late 2015, Nina Easton, who headed Fortune’s Washington coverage and chaired Fortune MPW International, and I told Fortune CEO Alan Murray that we were leaving our journalism lives behind to start a company. He asked us to stay on part time to continue building global MPW events, and we gladly did. Now, five years later, SellersEaston Media is going strong, thanks to our amazingly talented (and growing) team of experts in multimedia content creation. Given what SellersEaston does—telling stories of leadership and impact for prominent companies, organizations, and people—Nina’s offer to interview me seemed a fitting way to share my story. So, here we go…

NINA: People, including me, are shocked that you’re exiting Fortune after four decades. What gives?

PATTIE: I loved my work at Fortune. I learned everything there from the best colleagues I could imagine—how to interview, how to write, how to tell a story, how to be an entrepreneur by leading the buildout of MPW. I did more than I ever dreamed. For years, I was afraid that if I left, I’d let Fortune down. That is such a girl thing! The truth is that all that time, I was absorbing lessons from CEOs and entrepreneurs I had interviewed and come to know: “Growth and comfort don’t coexist” (Ginni Rometty)… “Know your value” (Mika Brzezinski)… “Own your power!” (Oprah Winfrey). In 2015, when you and I quit writing for Fortune to start SellersEaston, I finally listened to my heart, applied those lessons, and showed courage that I guess I had buried. Moving on from MPW is the obvious next step.

"... when you and I quit writing for Fortune to start SellersEaston, I finally listened to my heart, applied those lessons, and showed courage that I guess I had buried."

NINA: I remember when you called me with this startup idea back in 2015. Since I’m sleep-deprived these days, remind me what I bought into?

PATTIE: Ha! You had doubts. So did I. Our big idea was that we live in an age of storytelling, and thanks to a radically changing media landscape, anyone can tell their story and reach the audience they want to reach. What was missing? The expertise that the two of us bring from decades of interviewing and telling the stories of top people in business, government, and culture. Our original plan was to help people identify and shape their narrative, and then capture it in a top quality way via a filmed interview, article, book, video, documentary film, live or virtual event, podcast…however they want to communicate.

NINA: Right. Our initial focus was helping people tell their stories to their next generations.

PATTIE: We’ve done a lot of that! Our most popular service is our filmed Life Story Interviews for people to tell their stories in their own words for their children and grandchildren. And our Modern Family Portrait (where we capture, with a film crew, the everyday life of a family once each year as the kids grow up) is the most fun and fulfilling storytelling I’ll ever do. I love these personal storytelling projects—chronicling well-lived lives and the lessons and wisdom that come with them.

I love these personal storytelling projects—chronicling well-lived lives and the lessons and wisdom that come with them.

NINA: For me, the highlight has been our stories of transformative public figures—like our documentary on Nobel Peace Prize winner Juan Manuel Santos (on Amazon Prime Video here) and the memoirs we've done for business leaders in the Middle East and India, as well as in the U.S. And, Pattie, we’ve both found inspiration in our work for great companies.

PATTIE: Absolutely. Our work for top executives and rising stars keeps us current on the corporate thought leadership and impact front. Fortune’s nice story about us when we launched SellersEaston helped us a lot. Fortune 500 companies, prominent investments firms, and some startups hired us; we’re still working for some of those companies today.

NINA: What else has surprised you?

PATTIE: The breadth of our work—from board bios to executive profiles to D&I videos to biopic films to multimedia anniversary events, as we did for the LBJ School at UT. Nina, you deployed your expertise and passion for political history on that project—particularly in the short film that you produced on Lyndon Johnson’s legacy. And I pinch myself that we’re producing a feature documentary about civil rights leaders with 2X Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple. We’ve learned that we can do great work in any medium because we know how to a.) tell a story and b.) attract the best talent to work with us.

NINA: I’ll ask you a question that you’ve asked countless Fortune 500 CEOs and other leaders: What is power?

PATTIE: You know, we’ve helped so many women leaders get comfortable with the word “power.” As I said to Sheryl Sandberg when I met her in 2005, “Power is what you make it.” To me, power is what you do beyond your job description and your tenure. Imagine yourself waking up tomorrow without the job you held—then, look at yourself in the mirror and ask: “Am I still powerful?” If you can answer “Yes" to that question, then you have real power.

NINA: I like to think that we’re using our power to make a positive difference. Pattie, thanks for sharing!