October 2024
Lens On Leadership
Nina Easton and I are excited to share with you a few exciting additions to our SellersEaston offerings. Our colleague Nicole Didda, who has spent decades counseling CEOs on their communications, is now a certified executive coach—available to our clients. (She’s coached us, so we know how effective she is!) Another new SellersEaston service, Life & Lens, mixes our vaunted leadership storytelling skills with the brilliance of Ben Baker, one of the world’s top portrait photographers. Nina and I know Ben from our many years at Fortune magazine, where he was the go-to photographer for stunning covers of everyone from Warren Buffett to Barack Obama to Ginni Rometty. Also below, we tell you about Journey to Lead, our phenomenal nonprofit equipping the best emerging women leaders to reach the top. After 20+ years proudly leading Fortune Most Powerful Women, Nina and I consider JOURNEY a sort of MPW Act II—and super inspiring! - Pattie Sellers
Exec Coaching Comes to SellersEaston
Communications advisor. Change management consultant. And now Executive Coach. We’re thrilled to announce that SellersEaston Managing Director Nicole Didda has received Georgetown University’s prestigious Executive Leadership Coaching Certification, and she’s providing her services to our clients.
“I’ve spent my career working with executives to problem solve, and coaching flexes the flip side of that muscle,” says Nicole, who has spent 30 years helping CEOs and senior leaders navigate and communicate through complex change and crises. “I listen, ask, challenge, and inspire leaders to overcome limiting beliefs, reframe issues, and find solutions from within.”
Nicole continues to wear many hats at SellersEaston—providing presentation training, advising our corporate clients to strengthen their communications, and directing our corporate board readiness programs.
Learn more about our Executive Coaching here
or contact Nicole at nicole@sellerseaston.com.
Life & Lens
We’re excited to announce a new SellersEaston offering: Life & Lens, in partnership with Ben Baker, one of the world's top portrait photographers. Life & Lens is an artful version of our Life Story books, which are biographies and memoirs that we write, design, and custom publish for individuals to pass on their stories and life lessons to children and grandchildren. We bring our same world-class writing and interview skills to Life & Lens projects. Pictures are priceless, and Ben has a gift for capturing the humanity of world leaders, CEOs, renowned philanthropists, and others, as you see here. We supplement Ben’s images with archival photos (that you provide) and our writing. In a few months, you’ll have a beautiful book to inspire your next generations.
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Visit our website for information on Life & Lens and other Life Story offerings
Changing The Lives of Women Who are Changing the World
Nina and I co-founded Journey to Lead in 2022 after decades working with women leaders via Fortune Most Powerful Women and Vital Voices (where Nina is on the board). JOURNEY’s mission is to advance visionary women leaders to the top—and yes, we are changing the lives of women who are changing the world. Our success is grounded in a unique model built around prominent women already at the top, our 50 Champions, guiding JOURNEY Fellows—diverse annual classes of extraordinary startup CEOs and executives in large companies. Prominent men play key roles as supporters, partners, and coaches. This lifelong network of support for exceptional women leaders will soon number more than 150! As we continue to grow, we welcome your nominations for our 4th annual class of Fellows.
Click here to nominate an emerging star leader—or apply yourself!
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July 2024
LENS ON LEADERSHIP
Not long ago, a friend asked me:
“What exactly are you and Pattie Sellers doing in your post-Fortune lives?” That prompted both of us to recall all too many other times when it was clear that friends or colleagues had only a blurry understanding of SellersEaston Media.
Our fault, of course, and a reminder that as professional storytellers, we need to do less telling and more showing of our multimedia work producing life and leadership stories—from the C-suite to the boardroom to the living room. We’re enormously proud of the films we’ve produced. Gumbo Coalition chronicles the lives of two courageous civil rights leaders (watch it here on MAX); Port of Destiny: Peace (here on Amazon) tells the story of a Nobel Peace Prize winner; and this hour-long biopic captures the epic life and impact of philanthropist Eli Broad.
Our leadership stories take other forms, too. So we’re launching this newsletter to provide a glimpse into some of our latest work. Thank you, dear friends, for being our inaugural audience. Feel free to opine, unsubscribe, or drop a note to Pattie at pattie@sellerseaston.com or me, nina@sellerseaston.com.
HAVE A HAPPY, HEALTHY SUMMER! -NINA
LIFE STORY BOOKS
Just the idea of crafting a memoir to share with family, friends, colleagues, and possibly the public is overwhelming—let alone actually making it happen. So when I opened the acknowledgements page of legendary investor Peter Lynch’s new autobiography, I was so proud to see the accolades for Pattie:
“Pattie is an amazing individual… thorough, patient, creative, upbeat, efficient, great understanding of finance… and fun!”
MODERN FAMILY PORTRAIT
The brilliant Michael Apted 7Up movie series inspired us to create the Modern Family Portrait. With a nimble camera crew, we capture a day or two of family life each year—talking with children as dreams get bigger, parents as their own lives evolve, grandparents as they share their personal histories and wisdom. The annual short films we deliver become, over time, a multi-year series—a priceless chronicle of moments, voices, and stories you would never want to miss.
Learn more about the Modern Family Portrait here.
TRUSTED CEO ADVISER
When I first met Wall Street Journal veteran Eben Shapiro, I was intrigued by a series of insightful CEO interviews, titled The Leadership Brief, that he had created as TIME Deputy Editor. He is now SellersEaston’s Executive Editor and resident CEO Whisperer, working with prominent chief executives to shine as thoughtful leaders on transformative technologies like AI and other emerging issues.
I recently asked Eben: With such sharp yet nuanced interview skills (and down-to-earth charm to boot), what have you learned it takes to be a great leader in this uncertain global economy? “Humanity and inspiring communications distinguish today’s superstar CEOs,” he says.
Eben is right. At the end of the day, what drives great leadership is showing your humanity and never forgetting that people want to be inspired.
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