This past week’s issue of Newsweek featured a cover special, “Women and Power” (am I seeing a theme…) on female leaders in the U.S. There were 11 women who wrote, in their own words, about their work lives, and what it means to them to be a big name in their respective fields. Guess who got included? Lifetime Entertainment CEO Andrea Wong (who we wrote about here previously) and fashion designer Rachel Roy! Women are really getting it done these days! Totally hot.
Here are some excerpts from Andrea and Rachel:
Andrea Wong: My parents always allowed me to fail when I was growing up, and I think that gave me a lot of strength going forward in my life. I lost high-school and junior-high elections when I ran for class president. I learned early in life to get up and dust yourself off and keep going. … When I was overseeing reality programming for ABC, I fought to bring “Dancing With the Stars” to the U.S. and people thought I was totally out of my mind. I knew it was a big risk, but it was something I believed in so strongly. And luckily for me, it garnered record ratings. All the stars have to align to make a hit happen. You have to have developed, scheduled, cast, and marketed the show correctly. The script has to be great. The director has to give the show life in a way, in the perfect way. And then you’ve got to have writers who can keep writing those stories every week. And that’s really hard.
Rachel Roy: When I was a child we went school shopping once a year, and got to spend $200 for an entire wardrobe at Mervyns. Fed up and fueled by the lack of interesting clothing options in the store, I was convinced that if given the opportunity, I could put better styles, silhouettes and fabrics into the stores I was compelled to shop in. My mother told me that this was the job of a buyer, and in turn, my new goal was born: I wanted to be a buyer for Mervyns. …. Eventually, I was styling for music videos through my now husband, who is Damon Dash. Ironically, that didn’t go well because my esthetic was so different from the current look of the time. I remember showing up once with a beautiful gray Gucci sweater, a pencil skirt and bright red heels—I thought it was so chic and elegant for the girl I had in mind, and of course it was nixed.
Read more about their thoughts and experiences here!
Hot and Nerdy 
