Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Kathleen Finch, chief programming officer of HGTV, Food Network and Travel Channel To read the complete interview, check out other articles, and obtain subscription information, please click here.
Photo credit: Earl Wilson/The New York Times
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What were some early influences for you?
I grew up in Manhattan, in Greenwich Village. My parents moved here in the ’60s. I had these very bohemian, liberal, artsy parents, and my entire upbringing was a little unusual. I also went to a Quaker school.
Tell me more about your parents.
They made their living in the arts, but they also would buy brownstones and loft spaces and apartments in Manhattan. We would renovate them ourselves and then flip them, and they made a lot of money doing this. From my early teenage years, I could do things like run an industrial floor sander. I used to go to school with flecks of paint in my hair from painting ceilings. It taught me the value of hard work.
Did you have an idea what you wanted to do for a career when you went to college?
I knew I wanted to do something in media. When I was in college, I applied for some internships. I decided as a lark to take an internship at the Dr. Ruth show in New York. The day I walked on set, I thought, This is so cool. After college I worked for a while making videos for Apple, but I ended up going to CBS News, which was really my dream at that point.
How did you make that happen?
I went in as a secretary. Quite a few of my friends said, “What?” I said, “Foot in the door.” At the time, my boss was the news director. I knew when I met her that she would mentor me, and she did. I ended up being at CBS for 12 years as a producer. I traveled all over the world and had the best time.
How did that experience as a producer help you in your current role as a leader?
I was a 20-something producer, and my crews often consisted of grizzled veterans. I really had to prove myself to them because I had to tell them what to do out in the field, and a few of them hated that. There was a little bit of hazing that would go on.
At the time, we had a helicopter at CBS, and it was one of those helicopters that didn’t have doors. The pilot didn’t like people like me saying, “We’ve got to get to D.C. in two hours.” So as we were leaving Manhattan, he would bank the helicopter on its side. It was horrifying, but I learned pretty quickly that I had to be very tough, never back down, and if I was scared to death, I would never let them see it. You learn to be gracious but tough.
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To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.
Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times’ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.com that he started in March 2009. In his book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews of hundreds of business leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here. To contact him, please click here.