Postcards

Power Point: How to lose your job gracefully

"Not that materialism is going to go away, but people are looking to be better global citizens and live their lives in better balance."

-- Former Viacom (VIA.B) CEO Tom Freston, who Pattie profiles in the new issue of Fortune. To Freston's point, he's now helping Oprah Winfrey develop her new cable TV network, OWN, and working with U2 frontman Bono on his global humanitarian efforts. Does Freston still get calls MORE

Behind Oprah's big new TV venture

"You know I believe in signs."

You probably don't know that about Oprah Winfrey since you're not sitting around watching Oprah at 4 p.m. each day. (Rather, you're trying to keep your job, aren't you?)

But the queen of media mentioned this to me when we were talking about Tom Freston, the former Viacom (VIA.B) CEO whom Sumner Redstone fired in 2006 and Winfrey immediately went after. (Read "The Most Wanted Man MORE

Viacom's Freston moves on...to Oprah and Bono

Want to read a story about failure and redemption? About sitting at the top of the business world and losing it all suddenly? About discovering that success wasn't so sweet and finding a better calling?

Check out my hot-off-the-presses profile of Tom Freston. He's the guy who built MTV and rose to be CEO of Viacom (VIA.B), only to be dumped by Sumner Redstone, Viacom's owner, on Labor Day 2006. Freston MORE

Oprah chooses a CEO for OWN

by Patricia Sellers

MTV's former president, Christina Norman, is joining the most powerful woman in media to launch OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.

Winfrey's CEO appointment, announced Thursday afternoon, caps a talent hunt that's been going on quietly since May 2007 when Discovery Communications (DISCA) CEO David Zaslav pitched Winfrey on the idea of her own cable-TV network. Winfrey liked the idea instantly--"it's about living your best life," she says about OWN. MORE

This week: Power shifts at Merrill, Microsoft and beyond

This year started off with a bang - at least in terms of coming and goings of powerful people. Which Postcards is largely about.

This week, I told you about Liz Dolan, once Nike's (NKE) global marketing boss, joining Oprah Winfrey to be CMO of her new venture, the OWN cable network. And yesterday, my colleague Jessica Shambora wrote about Ellen Kullman, No. 15 on the Fortune Most Powerful Women list, MORE

Nike's former marketing boss gets back in the game

These days, it seems harder than ever to get back in the game. You know, you take a time-out from corporate America--to spend time with your family (really!) or simply to reinvigorate--and what do you get when you try to return? Serious skepticism about your experience and relevance because (hey, haven't you noticed?) the world changed radically while you were out.

So, it's interesting that Liz Dolan, Nike's (NKE) long-ago marketing MORE

CEOs are taking the new-venture route

When I give talks on the best CEOs and their career strategies, I pass on this advice: Think of your career not as a ladder but as a jungle gym. Particularly in today's tumultuous and unpredictable environment, who knows where the best opportunities will lie a year from now--or even next week? If you navigate your career as if you're on a jungle gym, you use your peripheral vision and MORE