Fairygodboss of the Week: Joanne Lipman

Joanne Lipman's journalism career began when she read Harriet the Spy at the age of seven. Like Harriet, she began recording observations in a notebook. Flash forward a few decades, and Joanne's resume includes writing and editing at publications including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. She's also the author of the recently published That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together. Our Fairygodboss of the Week is a role model personally as well as professionally: The mom of two is also a breast cancer survivor.

Author of That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together

New York, NY

At seven years old, I read Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, about an 11-year-old girl who "spies" on neighbors and writes down her observations in a notebook. I started doing the same thing! And eventually I realized you could make a career out of it...as a journalist.

In college I worked on the school paper, and while commuting to New York City for a magazine internship, I started reading my father's Wall Street Journal—and fell in love with the front page writing. Ultimately I got an internship at the WSJ, which then led to a permanent job as a reporter. I stayed for 22 years, working my way up to Deputy Managing Editor and overseeing creation of Weekend Journal, Personal Journal and the Saturday paper. I loved both journalism and the creative process of inventing new ways of telling stories and reaching audiences. So in 2005, I joined Conde Nast to create a new kind of business magazine, Conde Nast Portfolio. Unfortunately, we launched right before the financial crisis, and it folded in 2009.

I later joined Gannett as Chief Content Officer and Editor in Chief of USA Today and the USA Today Network, comprising the flagship paper plus 109 local newspapers including the Detroit Free Press, Des Moines Register, and Cincinnati Enquirer. While there I also worked on my book on closing the gender gap, That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together. It was just published by William Morrow.

My kids! Rebecca, Andrew, and my husband Tom are my favorite human beings.

I've had plenty of challenges to choose from. On the professional side, Portfolio magazine closed after the financial crisis, and I suddenly found myself without a job for the first time since I was 14 years old! I used the opportunity to take on passion projects, including writing my first book, Strings Attached, a music memoir I co-authored with one of my close childhood friends (and daughter of the music teacher at the center of the story), Melanie Kupchynsky.

On the personal front, I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I turned 40, when my kids were very young. I kept working, through two surgeries, chemo and radiation. Knock on everything, I've got a clean bill of health now. But an experience like that definitely gives you perspective on the daily ups and downs of life.

We never worked together, but I really admire Ann Shoket, former Editor-in-Chief of Seventeen magazine and author of The Big Life, who is all in when it comes to empowering a new generation of millennial women.

Swim, tennis, read, hang with my kids if they'll let me—and hopefully sleep!

Ida Tarbell, pioneering female (!) investigative journalist of the early 20th century.

Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."

The Wizard of Oz or The Sound of Music. A tie.

Anna Karennina. Love it, plus it's really long.

Shopping vice: Woodbury Commons! Great outlet stores. If I won the lottery I still would shop the outlets...but I would travel by private plane.

Pursue the path you are passionate about - not what others tell you that you "should" do or "should" want.

I've loved everyplace where I've worked...and it all comes down to one reason: The people. I love being in a newsroom—it's my favorite work environment. But what makes any workplace great is when you find simpatico colleagues who become friends. You go through up and downs and tough days together, and it bonds you for life.