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Patricia Sellers      

Co-Founder of SellersEaston Media, Executive Director of Fortune MPW Summits, Award-Winning Journalist

Patricia Sellers is the Partner and Co-Founder of SellersEaston Media and the Executive Director of Fortune MPW Summits and Live Content. She is also a former assistant managing editor at Fortune. An award-winning journalist, Patricia wrote more than 20 cover stories during her three-decade-long tenure at Fortune. Her resume includes groundbreaking interviews with high-profile figures like Warren Buffett, Rupert Murdoch, Oprah Winfrey, Melinda Gates, and Billie Jean King, alongside definitive profiles of Ted Turner, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, former Coca-Cola Chairman Muhtar Kent, Heineken heir Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, and many other leaders in global business and other fields.

Patricia co-founded Fortune Most Powerful Women (MPW), which began in 1998 as an annual ranking of the top women in business and has grown into the magazine’s largest and most valuable franchise. She oversees the Fortune MPW Summits which include six annual conferences across the globe. Patricia also directs various MPW programs, including the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Mentoring Partnership and the Goldman Sachs-Fortune Global Women Leaders Award.

In 2013, Patricia received Time Inc.’s prestigious MVP (Most Valuable Performer) award for her innovative contributions at Fortune and her broad impact across its then-parent company. A "Washington Post" profile of Patricia, titled "The Rolodex that Redefined Power," describes her unmatched talent for interviewing and profiling successful people. Patricia has written some of Fortune’s most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?," "The $100 Billion Woman (Melinda Gates)," "Martha Stewart (I cannot be destroyed)" and "Ted Turner (Gone with the Wind)." Her insightful career management stories include "Ego (Get Over Yourself!)," "Charisma (Do You Need It? Can You Get It?)," "Failure (So You Fail. So What?)," and "Power (Do Women Really Want It? and Women, Sex & Power)." Patricia grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984.

Speech Topics

On Women and Leadership

Women leaders tend to think about power horizontallyand manage that way too. Having spent the past 15 years studying women leadersand building Most Powerful Women into Fortunes second-biggest brand, after the Fortune 500Pattie Sellers has gained unparalleled access to Americas top women leaders and has keen insights into what makes women successful (and not) in business, philanthropy, government and beyond. Her views are provocative and can be controversial: The concept of the glass ceiling is overplayed, she believes, and women hold themselves back by feeling uncomfortable with power. Wise women leaders embrace powerin different ways than most men do.

A View from the Boardroom: How Great Leaders Lead

Entrepreneurs drive economic recoveryand women are key. While Sellers has spent most of her 26 years at Fortune writing about leaders of large companies, her purview is much broader. She has written definitive (and exclusive) cover stories on world-changing entrepreneurs and leaders from across the business spectrum. Sellers talks about the common traits of outstanding business-builders and also explores stories of prominent people who have discovered fresh passion to start new lives after their careers in business.

Beyond the Corporate Ladder: New Career Paradigms for Changing Times

The most successful people think of their careers as jungle gyms, where the rewards come from moving in all directions and not just up. Sounds scary, but particularly in this fast-changing and unpredictable world, you should not think of your career as just climbing a ladder. More than ever, you need peripheral vision and the ability to think broadly. An expert on the traits needed to navigate a successful career, Pattie Sellers shows how flexibilityin both managing and being managedis an increasingly critical trait in todays workplaces. Success favors the highly adaptable who are ready to swing to opportunities over here and over there.

Experienced Moderator

As the co-founder and chair of Fortunes Most Powerful Women Summit, Pattie Sellers uses her sharp intellect and comfortable conversation style to play host, emcee and moderator to the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia and the arts. With warmth, humor and extensive knowledge on the latest trends in business, Sellers deftly engages panelsand her audiencein a vibrant discussion that will create a memorable and informative program.

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