women rule

For our final episode of 2020, Anna is joined by Alicia Garza, the activist and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. They look back at 2020 — a year when Americans endured crises from the pandemic to the economic recession, racial injustices and a highly contentious presidential election. Through it all, women have often taken the lead. And as we head into 2021, Alicia tells us how she’s looking to set the course in activism for the year to come.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal represents Seattle, one of the most hard-hit areas in the country during the coronavirus pandemic. Via Zoom, she and Anna talked about that, why she thinks the economy isn't quite ready to reopen, and what she wishes the Trump administration got wrong in its response. Beyond that, she discussed her history-making path to the Congress, why she often finds leadership lonely, and "the poor men who are so afraid of our talents as women."

When you sit down at a restaurant to eat, there are so many things that need to happen that never occur to you. That’s where Kimberly Grant comes in. She’s the CEO of José Andrés’ company, and before that, one of the top executives at Ruby Tuesday. Kimberly joined Anna to talk about what makes a restaurant a success, the weird spat between her boss and Donald Trump, and why sterling credentials aren’t always a match for real-world experience.

Amy Howe, the president and COO of Ticketmaster North America, joins Anna Palmer to discuss the “obligation to dissent” that makes her speak up in meetings, what her years as a business consultant taught her about being a successful manager and boss, and how we might be getting that whole “work-life balance” thing all wrong.

It's an important skill to have. Just ask Jamie Jones Miller. She was a college athlete, then worked as a lobbyist before a career on Capitol Hill, where she rose to become a chief of staff. Now, as the top lobbyist for the Defense Department, she has to walk a fine line — being strong and forceful but also empathetic and congenial.

When you conjure up an image of a c-suite executive, you probably don’t envision a smiling, friendly person. At first, Kate Lewis didn’t either. And that was a problem as Lewis started taking on jobs in the publishing world with greater and greater responsibilities: By nature, she has a smiling, friendly disposition. But she didn’t see very many people like that in the corridors of power. “In the magazine industry, there are a lot of—there’s an image, right, that you need to be a high-fashion person, that you need to have been a journalist in the trenches,” said Lewis, the chief content officer for Hearst Magazines. As a young, ambitious woman, she emulated them—thinking doing so was key to her thriving in the notoriously fast-paced New York publishing world. Instead, she had a realization that changed everything: What if being herself—that smiling, friendly person—actually made her a better leader? “I found my success when I became who I am. And that’s hard,” Lewis said during an interview for POLITICO’s Women Rule podcast. “I became comfortable with just being Kate. And that enabled me to have more candid, more deep, more real conversations with the people who were either going to hire me or were going to manage me or who I was going to work with. And I think that has made me more successful.” At Hearst, Lewis oversees some of the most enduring and recognized magazines in America, including Cosmopolitan, Country Living, Good Housekeeping, Elle, Marie Claire, Popular Mechanics, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle, to name a few. “Even though wisdom may be, you know, not to be the goofball, and to … not openly question yourself or open yourself up for debate, I think that has worked out really well for me,” Lewis said. “I think it’s coupled with the fact that I am decisive, and when I see the path, I go after it, and that I am capable of being critical, and all those things.” “To me, that is the best strategy,” said Lewis: “Just be yourself and trust that that’s enough.”

How do you get to be one of the most powerful women in the tech world by the time you're in your mid-30s? Maher is the head of the Wikimedia Foundation, the group that runs the fifth most popular website in the world: Wikipedia. She joins to talk about women in tech, fake news and what she discovered when she became a boss.

She went from being a paralegal and receptionist to a CEO, self-made billionaire and member of the president’s cabinet. Linda McMahon, the former CEO of WWE, former head of the Small Business Administration and current chair of America First Action — a super PAC dedicated to supporting Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign — shares what she learned along the way.

Before joining Congress, Houlahan served in the Air Force, led a major sporting-goods company, taught high-school chemistry, and was a non-profit executive. She shares what she’s learned along the way — and how she became comfortable taking on totally new challenges, time and again.

As editor-in-chief of the Bustle Digital Group, Kate Ward oversees some of the web's most popular news outlets, including Romper, Elite Daily, and Mic — pretty amazing for a company that started out of a Brooklyn apartment. Ward shares what she's learned in the journey from start-up to major success — including why Bustle gives its employees a financial stake in the company.

Since founding Framebridge in 2014, Susan Tynan has raised more than $67 million in funding for her company. How did she do it? By learning at every step of the way and learning to trust her own instincts. Anna sat down with Susan on stage to talk about the specific lessons she's learned from launching her own startup, how to get over the hump in starting your own business, and what it's like to be a professional woman pitching mostly wealthy, white, male investors.

Years before Heather Wilson was secretary of the Air Force or a member of Congress, she was a student in just the third class in Air Force Academy history that admitted women. She talks with us about how the national security world has changed for women over her career, the many different hats she's worn, and what it's like to be mentioned as potentially the first woman to become secretary of Defense.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, documentary filmmaker and women's rights advocate, could be the next first lady of California. Women Rule talks with Siebel Newsom about the film career she never anticipated, her work on gender equality, and why she'd rather be called the First "Partner," if her husband, Gavin Newsom, wins in November.

Women Rule talks with actress Jane Fonda about political activism, "radical kinship" with Donald Trump and his supporters, and the latest documentary examining her extraordinary life in the public eye, HBO's "Jane Fonda in Five Acts." We also chat with Fonda and filmmaker Susan Lacy about the arc of their careers and the relationships we build with women. The HBO documentary film "Jane Fonda in Five Acts" is available on HBO Now, HBO Go and on demand.

Tamara Mellon, now the founder and chief creative officer of her own eponymous shoe line, struggled with addiction, founded a luxury shoe empire, and sought to disrupt the fashion industry. Women Rule talked with Mellon about how she started Jimmy Choo - and what that company has to do with her advocacy in closing the gender pay gap.