The CNBC Senior Media & Tech Correspondent and author of “When Women Lead” details her hard-won experience and advice.
Some careers are carefully planned, others are a bit more of a surprise. As Julia Boorstin shared with Karen Finerman on the How She Does It podcast, she didn’t expect a brief stint in business journalism to turn into a love that has guided her entire professional life.
She has spent the past 19 years at CNBC as the Senior Media & Tech Correspondent, covering business and culture drivers like YouTube, Disney, Netflix, Meta, Google, and OpenAI. She’s also used her platform to shine a light on how women in leadership positions are changing the game in business.
Why Preparation Plus Boxy Blazers Worked For Julia Boorstin
The Princeton grad landed her first job as a reporter at FORTUNE, despite not having taken a single economics class during her undergraduate years. Her original plan was to stay one year before moving on to grad school. But along the way, she became enamored of the work.
“Because I was so insecure that I hadn’t studied this, I did all the reading I possibly could to sort of catch up.” This approach impressed her editors, who taught her how to “dig into the numbers” of complex financial documents.
“I joined FORTUNE magazine in 2000. I was the last person that they hired right around when the stock market crashed,” recalled Boorstin. Then in her early 20s, she often found herself interviewing analysts who had missed the signs, or CEO’s running companies where the stock value had plummeted.
“I was asking tough questions, and people do not like getting asked tough questions by someone they think looks like a little girl. So I got dressed in my old boxy blazers, funny glasses and I over-prepared so I would be taken seriously,” she recalled.
Boorstin got her first shot on television when she was invited on CNN to discuss an article she had written. It was unexpected, but her boss at the time encouraged her. Boorstin was comfortable on live TV, and she knew her stuff. Not surprisingly, she became a regular guest at CNN for a few years while working at FORTUNE. It wasn’t too long before CNBC came calling and offered her a full-time, on-air job.
When Women Lead: Why Gratitude Matters
In 2022, Boorstin released her book: “When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them.” In it, she interviews hundreds of leaders and dove into the academic research to create a snapshot of the types of skills and characteristics women bring to the table in leadership.
Gratitude emerged as one of the most surprising patterns. “There was about a two-week period where I did maybe a dozen interviews, and so many of the women talked about feeling grateful” for setbacks and traumatic experiences that had reshaped their leadership approach. So why was this an indicator of excellent leadership? Boorstin found research that shows gratitude “correlates with long-term planning and patience in general.”
Julia Boorstin: Paving Her Own Path
Planning and patience also came into play in Boorstin’s own career. After being with CNBC for a year, they gave her the option to work from Los Angeles or New York. She chose L.A. At the time, she was dating her now-husband, who was based there. But she knew being outside of New York would limit her ability to one day be considered for an anchor role. So, she focused on creating her own opportunities and finding places to add value.
One such project was the Disruptor 50, an annual list of extremely innovative, private companies. It was born of the question Boorstin asked herself: How do we find the next Mark Zuckerberg before they become famous?
Advice For A Changing World
This year’s Disruptor 50 list features companies that are almost all AI-driven. From what Boorstin has seen, that’s not a surprise.
“I think AI is impacting every single industry, period,” Boorstin says, adding that she encourages people to try AI via platforms like Perplexity, Claude, or ChatGPT.
“I think it’s really important for everyone to play around with it,” Boorstin says. She acknowledges that some people are frightened of the technology, but she remains optimistic.
“First of all, the world will adapt. Jobs will be lost, but people will also adapt, and new opportunities will present themselves,” Boorstin says.
As such, Boorstin advises young people to approach their careers with flexibility, and that it’s possible to find a great fit in something completely unexpected, just like she did.
“I think that you don’t know what you’re going to love until you’re actually doing it. The world is changing. The jobs that we’re going to all have in five years could be totally different. So you just sort of have to get there and try the thing…Just try the thing. Even if you think you might hate it, you might love it. Be open.”
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