Postcards
Tyra Banks: Insecurity paves the way to success
September 21, 2011: 9:00 AM ET
The Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit kicks off in two weeks with a twist on mentoring: 35 high school seniors will interview certain inspiring women leaders—including fashion entrepreneur Tory Burch, Lululemon (LULU) CEO Christine Day, Gilt Group Chairman Susan Lyne, singer Rosanne Cash—about success and how to get there.
Also in this mix of MPW mentors: Tyra Banks. The supermodel-cum-media entrepreneur created the TV hit, America's Next Top Model, has released her first novel, Modelland, and is doing a variety of web projects. For a lot of young women, Banks epitomizes power. Last week when I interviewed her for the MPW-Yahoo (YHOO) Power Your Future series, she spoke a simple truth about a lot of powerful women (and many men too): Success, more often than not, is born out of insecurity.
Banks grew from introvert to "mean girl" to "freak girl"—tall and gawky and insecure—by her early teens. "I became a victim of mean girls," she says, adding, "I became the victim of myself."
But then on her first day of high school, a girl tapped Tyra on the shoulder and asked, "Are you a model?" That was all it took to give her a little self-esteem. Starting to model in 11th grade, she was college-bound (with acceptances from UCLA, USC, and Loyola Marymount) but got a chance to go to Paris to model. She deferred college and gave herself a year to become a supermodel.
And she did—because, she says, her mother told her that she had to distinguish herself from the competition. Before leaving for Paris, Tyra spent countless hours in the library, studying the top fashion designers and models over the decades. "I have to get a signature walk," she told herself. Her first year in Paris, Banks broke the record for most fashion shows by a newcomer.
She wrote Modelland in between empire-building and going to Harvard Business School. In the fantastical novel she is speaking to girls and young women as insecure as she used to be. "I want to expand the definition of beauty so more girls can feel beautiful when they look in the mirror," she says.
Now Banks, 37, wants to have her own kids—and marriage to her longtime boyfriend, investment banker John Utendahl, isn't essential to her plan, she says. Children would be a huge commitment for a woman who has few hours to spare as it is. But if Banks had one more hour in the day to do something good, how would she spend it? "I think I would get the phone numbers of certain girls who reached out to me and were having some issues with their self-esteem," she replies. She says she would ask these girls to look in the mirror, find one thing great about themselves—their nose, toes, whatever—and next month, look again. And again.
Real power, says Banks, is "the power to make change, the power to be effective"—and all about passing it on to the girls. "It's the power to make them feel better," she adds.
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Naval pioneer to globetrotting pharma exec
It still takes a powerful man to make room for a powerful woman. There is, of course, the stunning rise of Christine Lagarde at the International Monetary Fund. (Thank you, DSK.) And there is the presence of 12 women CEOs of Fortune Global 500 companies. (The 2011 Global 500 list hit the web today.)
Indeed, except for the rare corporation where a woman follows a woman CEO—Xerox (XRX) is the textbook MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jul 7, 2011 10:12 AM ET -
Are girls afraid of money?
While visiting a friend's daughter at Georgetown University earlier this month, I got lured into meeting with a group of 15 undergrads. The session was great fun and illuminating. These were bright young women whose ambitions ranged, they told me, from cleaning up the global environmental to achieving world peace to building Fortune 500 companies.
Not one shrinking violets here.
The weekly convener of these students is Susan Wilson, CEO of The MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 18, 2011 11:39 AM ET -
Making a difference on International Women's Day
Today is International Women's Day--as Google (GOOG) notes by placing a colorful graphic, honoring women, above the search box on its homepage.
If you click on that graphic, you'll arrive at a page that lists a multitude of ways to help women around the world. Google lists 44 organizations--such as Women for Women International and Vital Voices and Camfed--that deploy your donations to empower women.
Click on the link for Camfed, a not-for-profit that MORE
Patricia Sellers - Mar 8, 2011 2:58 PM ET -
After the revolution: An Egyptian woman's new view
Amany Eid found her voice last week in Cairo's Tahrir Square and here on Postcards as well. Eid, 34, wrote a Guest Post about how she, after never before feeling politically inclined (because, under a repressive regime, what's the point?) joined the protests that toppled the Egyptian government. Eid, a telecom-industry manager in Cairo and also an alum of the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring program, returned MORE
Patricia Sellers - Feb 14, 2011 12:54 PM ETPosted in: Amany Eid, Cairo, Egypt, FORTUNE MPWomen, Hosni Mubarak, Mentoring, Most Powerful Women, MPWomen Go Global, Postcards -
Back in Cairo's Tahrir Square
In Monday's Postcard, Amany Eid, an Egyptian woman who was never politically active before, wrote about joining the demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Now we see that Eid is just one of hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who are finding their voices for the first time in their lives. Yesterday's demonstrations in Tahrir Square were the largest yet and were relatively peaceful, thanks in part to the Egyptian Army.
While it MORE
Patricia Sellers - Feb 9, 2011 2:42 PM ET -
Egypt unrest: A brave native woman's view
Last week on Postcards, Kissinger Associates President Jami Miscik, a former senior official at the CIA, shared her take on the unrest in Egypt and her story of being in Cairo when it began.
Over the weekend, I received an email from a woman who has an even more up-close-and-personal view of what's going on in Egypt. Amany Eid lives in Cairo, works in the telecom industry, and spent a month MORE
Patricia Sellers - Feb 7, 2011 1:51 PM ET -
Come together: Women rise to the crisis
by Patricia Sellers
This past week brought the tragedy in Tucson, President Obama's soaring sermon about national unity on Wednesday night, and then the news that a visit from a clutch of her Congresswomen friends prompted Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to open her eyes for the first time.
This seems an appropriate time to share another demonstration of unity. Though this one is taking place half a world away.
After a suicide bomb outside MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 14, 2011 11:52 AM ET -
Africa's growth vehicle: Women
By Patricia Sellers
Besides Africa's rise in GDP and global stature, one subject dominated the conversation at the Global Forum, hosted by Fortune and Time and CNN this past week in Cape Town. That is: the economic potential of women.
Just about all the heavy-hitters -- Bill Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and various CEOs -- spoke of the essential role of women in bringing Africa to its potential. "Who are the entrepreneurs?' MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jul 1, 2010 12:09 PM ET -
Beyond gossip girls: College women talk math and science
by Jessica Shambora
Yesterday morning a group of 22 college women gathered at the Time & Life building in New York City for breakfast. Not surprisingly, they were abuzz with chatter. But the topic du jour wasn't the next Twilight film, or the latest reality show gossip. What got these women going at such an early hour? Math and science.
"I don't get to talk about science with other girls very often," MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jun 23, 2010 11:34 AM ET
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Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.
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Every year Fortune and the U.S. State Department sponsor the Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership, which brings rising-star women from developing countries to the U.S. to work closely with participants of the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit - among them CEOs Andrea Jung of Avon, Ann Moore of Time Inc., and Ursula Burns of Xerox.
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