Find Your “Zone Of Genius:” Teen Vogue Former Editor’s Tips on Leading, Confidence and Work
Natalie Moore (left) interviews Elaine Welteroth at the recent Chicago Foundation for Women annual event. (CFW photo)
“Appoint yourself,” Elaine Welteroth, author, journalist, “Project Runway” judge and former editor in chief of Teen Vogue, told a crowd of close to 2,000 at the 34th annual Chicago Foundation for Women luncheon. “We have a responsibility to make a difference right where we are.”
In conversation with award-winning journalist and author Natalie Moore, Welteroth, author of the memoir, More Than Enough: Claiming space for who you are (no matter what they say), offered her take on owning your story, confidence, mentoring, representation, boldness, inclusion and mission.
“At the 34th annual @ChiFdn4Women #CFWLuncheon @ElaineWelteroth, author of the memoir #MoreThanEnough offered her take on confidence, mentoring, representation, boldness, #inclusion and mission.”
With the theme, “Flip The Script,” Felicia Davis, newly appointed president and CEO of the Chicago Foundation for Women, reports that in its history the foundation has invested $36 million in programs and services for women and girls since 1984, including $2.8 million in 2018. Davis says the event raised $1.2 million for the Chicago Foundation for Women.
“CFW is changing the stories for little girls just like me by coordinated, intensive investment in women, girls, trans and non-binary,” Davis says.
Citing research that says girls’ confidence peaks at 9 years old, Welteroth says, “I am dedicated to doing work to uplift women and reflecting on my journey, it wasn’t all that surprising. Like most girls at 9, I was a badass.”
In her Fremont, California cul-de-sac growing up with a white father and black mother in a mostly white neighborhood, she had her own hair salon, borrowing cardboard from neighbors to build her “salon,” and charging her classmates to fix their hair.
Read more in Take The Lead at the 2018 Chicago Foundation For Women event
“There’s this thing that happens,” Welteroth says. “About age 9, a girl enters into the world with a limitless sense of possibility and it is the world’s labels and stereotypes that hurt the way we dream. It is through the hero’s journey that you recognize all you have lost along the way, and you can look back and claim the parts of yourself.”
“@ElaineWelteroth says,“About age 9, a girl enters into the world with a limitless sense of possibility and it is the world’s labels and stereotypes that hurt the way we dream.” #Ambition @ChiFdn4Women @natalieymoore #FlipTheScript”
Read more in Take The Lead from the 2016 Chicago Foundation for Women event
Welteroth says she was familiar as a young girl with being the only black girl in a room. It was particularly pronounced in pre-school, when an assignment was for the children to make a collage of their family by cutting out photos from magazines the teacher provided.
“No one looked like me or my mother,” Welteroth says. “It was the first time I felt other, and it made me feel less than. So I made a collage of a white family.”
When she was at home showing her mother her collage, Welteroth says her mother said, “We are going to sit down as a family and redo the assignment.” She adds, “She pulled out Ebony and Essence magazines and we redid the assignment.”
Years later, Welteroth, who became the youngest and only second African American editor in the 107-year history of Conde Nast, would begin her magazine career at Ebony, where she says she was faced daily with issues of representation.
As someone working in “black media,” trying to gain access and overcome challenges not present in white media, “I had to work 10 times as hard for half the respect.”
She says it was when she learned, “In order to change the story, we need to change the storytellers.”
““In order to change the story, we need to change the storytellers,” says @ElaineWelteroth. #FemaleLeadership #GirlPower #WOC @ChiFdn4Women”
After Ebony, Welteroth went on to Glamour in 2011 as beauty and style editor. She says, “It was daunting to see the double standard. I was expected to be an expect in black and white beauty,” while white beauty editors who were experts for 25 years knew nothing about black skincare, haircare or products.
“Here I was writing about self-tanner,” Welteroth says. “But it a much deeper issue. Working at Ebony illustrated what it is to be marginalized in America.”
Read more in Take The Lead on Chicago Foundation For Women.
She adds that if you are an “F & O D,” or what she says Shonda Rimes calls “first and only different” in a situation, “you become a role model whether you signed up for it or not.”
“@ElaineWelteroth adds that if you are what @Shondarhimes calls “first and only different” in a situation, “you become a role model whether you signed up for it or not.” #Minority #Privilege @ChiFdn4Women”
Welteroth adds, “We can all put ourselves in spaces where we are the only one who looks like us and it is a really important learning opportunity to learn what it is like to be a minority and to understand the privilege you have.”
Read more in Take The Lead on representation of women in media
All the neat proclamations such as “be yourself,” or “find your voice,” take time, she says. “The best thing we can do is tell the truth.”
“All the neat proclamations such as “be yourself,” or “find your voice,” take time, @ElaineWelteroth says. “The best thing we can do is tell the #truth.” #LifeAdvice”
After beginning at Teen Vogue in 2012, she moved up to editor in chief, a position she started in 2016. Under her leadership, the magazine went from a readership of 2 million to 12 million, and traffic was up 300 percent, she says.
Readers “bought more magazines than they had in years in a declining marketplace,” Welteroth says.
One of the designers at the magazine told Welteroth when she became the top editor that there were three forbidden rules for who is on the cover. “Anyone who is not a household name, model, or black people.”
Welteroth put three black models on the cover and it outperformed all other covers that year.
“We did what we knew was right,” she says. “You have to be the risk taker to change the data and change the mission to empower, enlighten, inspire and amplify the voices of people who do not see themselves reflected.”
““You have to be the #RiskTaker to change the data and change the mission to #empower, enlighten, inspire and amplify the voices of people who do not see themselves reflected,” says @ElaineWelteroth. ”
Welteroth adds, “When you decide to make a bold mission and have a broad impact and you change the stories, it’s not just a nice thing to do, it’s a business imperative.”
“@ElaineWelteroth adds, “When you decide to make a bold mission and have a broad impact, it’s not just a nice thing to do, it’s a business imperative.” #InclusiveBusiness @ChiFdn4Women”
To loud applause she adds, “You can be political and stylish.”
Advising other women in leadership she says, “You have to figure out as early as possible what your zone of genius is.”
“Advising other #women in #leadership @ElaineWelteroth says, “You have to figure out as early as possible what your zone of genius is.” #ZoneOfGenius”
Mentoring younger women and volunteering at the Lower East Girls Club in New York, Welteroth says her work is “helping another young woman who looks like me to do something she thought she couldn’t do.”
And while she has had enormous success in her career, Welteroth says she will not “be part of telling lies on social media.” Those lies, she says, are the difficulties and challenges that never make it to the headlines and include taking care of yourself.
“It is so much harder to advocate for yourself trying to balance full, wholly fulfilling lives,” she says, “including figuring out how to access power in our relationships.”
Navigating the challenges of leadership in major media, Welteroth says for all leaders in every industry, “I wish we could abandon the term ‘culture fit,’ because we need to be hiring for our blind spots.”
Lastly, before a long standing ovation, Welteroth invited everyone in the room to mentor a young woman. “It is very fulfilling to be a mentor,” she says. “And they mentor you too.”
“@ElaineWelteroth invited everyone in the @ChiFdn4Women room to #mentor a young woman. “It is very fulfilling to be a mentor,” she says. “And they mentor you too.” #FemaleMentors”
