I’m going to start a new category on this blog, one that highlights cool lady tycoons who are my role models. Most of the CEOs of the companies I care about are old white men (Rupe, Barry D., Si, even Denton, who may not be old but def qualifies as a silver fox) which is boring, but I think the Internet is going to change that. I have no real data behind the Internet being a catalyst for changing the gender breakdown of the tycoon landscape, but the Internet has changed a lot of stuff and it’s just a hopeful hunch on my part.
First up, Wenda Harris Millard, co-CEO at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and the Chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) - no Wikipedia entry, which is a total shame but she seems like an un-fameball so I guess it makes sense. Millard used to work at Yahoo , and my favorite thing about her is that she really understands that the Internet rocks so hard that we should (paraphrased) “not commoditize Internet advertising before figuring out its ‘value proposition’” (i.e., stop selling ads for so cheap). Here she is, saying very smart things in an interview with Kara Swisher:
I really love seeing women like Millard in positions of power - I think she’s super smart and MSLO is lucky to have her.
Disclosure: I used to work at an online ad agency and MSLO was one of my clients (well, a client of the team I was on - I wasn’t in charge or anything and though I worked closely with the contact at MSLO, I never got to talk to WHM, but I am probably more cognizant of her coolness because of where I worked).
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