Their Ways With Words: 2 Power Tool Champions Work To Make Real Change With Stories
Michelle Genece Patterson (center) at a recent panel event.
The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Michelle Génecé Patterson, grew up on Blueberry Hill Lane in Sudbury, Mass., a suburb of Boston that she describes as “idyllic, but very much a dissonance culturally and experientially as we were the only family of color.”
Her father is a native of La Gonave, an island of Haiti, where there was no electricity or running water, and her mother is from Port Au Prince. It was their tenacity in moving from Haiti to New York City to Boston, that was a “key pivotal turning point for me,” Génecé Patterson says.
Génecé Patterson, an alumna of the 2019 cohort of 50 Women Can Change The World in Journalism, is The Take The Lead Power Tool Champion for The Influencer award for Power Tool # 8, Employ Every Medium. She receives her award in Washington, D.C. at the Power Up Conference on Women’s Equality Day, August 26. The Conference 2025 theme is “Courage To Lead.”
Learn more here about The Power Up Conference 2025
An award-winning TV broadcast creator and producer at ABC News and CNN for decades, and currently the co-founder of MindFire Productions, Génecé Patterson credits her childhood as a “place of natural beauty and warmth and a solid, warm start to life, not aware of politics and unaware of tensions swarming around me and my two older brothers.”
She also credits Take The Lead with helping her incorporate the importance of her own story with her life’s work.
Learn more in Take The Lead about 50 Women in Journalism
“Take The Lead has been an important and helpful role in my life in the remembering of me to myself,” Génecé Patterson says. The award comes at a pivotal time, she says, and reminds her of “the power tools as vehicles to harness the transformative power of storytelling.”
“Power Tool Champion winner Michelle Génecé Patterson: @TakeLeadwomen “has been an important and helpful role in my life in the remembering of me to myself,” reminding her of “the power tools as vehicles to harness the transformative power of #storytelling.” #leadership”
After moving from Sudbury, she attended a prestigious private day school in Ohio,, the Cincinnati Country Day School, as her father was the head of the language department there, and she and her two older brothers graduated from that high school. Génecé Patterson graduated in 1988 and attended Stanford University, where she studied international affairs.
“I probably could see storytelling threads throughout my life, and it was part of my DNA, my focus, but what my heart wanted to do at that time, I didn’t know.”
Read more in Take The Lead on women in journalism
Génecé Patterson, who has won a Peabody Award and six Emmy Awards says, “I was always interested in this concept of ‘the other’ and in giving everyone access to information and resources.”
Read more on 50 Women in Journalism in Take The Lead
She adds, “My parents gave me this superhighway intro into first world resources and access, so I wanted to focus on being a bridge to power and access for others, anything to bring isolated or marginalized groups into a better place for better lives.”
“ Michelle Genece Patterson, @peabodyawards @Theemmys winner @CNN @ABCNews: “I wanted to focus on being a bridge to power and access for others, anything to bring isolated or marginalized groups into a better place for better lives.” @takeleadwomen ”
After studying at Oxford University and graduating a year early from Stanford in 1991, Génecé Patterson and three other Black women Stanford alums created Nefertiti Visions, a film project about the community building principles of Kwanzaa. “We had no idea what we were doing,” she says, “and my parents did not understand getting a degree from Stanford and then moving to New York City with no job or money..”
Read more on women in journalism in Take The Lead
The project did not come to fruition, but with lessons learned, she pivoted and attended Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs for graduate school, and did an internship at the United Nations with the hope of bridging access to resources and information to improve lives there.
Before graduating with a masters in International Media & Communications and Africa & The Caribbean, Génecé Patterson took a journalism course taught by two former “60 Minutes” producers, “and a whole new world of storytelling came into my head.”
Génecé Patterson says, “TV Storytelling provided a new way of being able to impact things, to be a bridge for those who don’t know to those who do know.”
After graduation, Génecé Patterson turned an informational interview at ABC News into her first job in journalism as an associate producer, covering all areas of news for the ABC News New York bureau,
Read more in Take The Lead on women in journalism
“I had the creative freedom to explore storytelling in a different way. I got my news, storytelling, integrity muscles and leaned towards stories that might inspire and get someone to alter their behavior, participate and engage,” Génecé Patterson says. “How you tell a story can get people to move with their bodies, feel something different and then go act on it,” she says.
“Michelle Genece Patterson: “How you tell a story can get people to move with their bodies, feel something different and then go act on it.” #storytelling #power #leadership #media @takeleadwomen”
The youngest person to be promoted to producer at ABC News at the time, Génecé Patterson worked on “World News Tonight,” “Nightline” and “Good Morning America,” exclusively produced for Anderson Cooper and George Stephanopolous and covered two presidential election campaigns. She then went on to a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan and began freelance work for ABC News Productions, producing documentaries for A& E and Lifetime.
Working at CNN from 2006 to 2024 as a founding senior producer for the innovative “CNN Heroes,” Genece Patterson says, “I am very proud of that work and using that strategic visibility as a way of lifting people up.” At CNN, she collaborated first with the Annenberg Foundation and then with The Elevate Prize Foundation and secured $1.2 million in funding over two years for prized CNN Heroes.
Génecé Patterson describes her role at CNN Heroes: “As a founding Senior Producer for the global campaign, along with a small and dedicated team of talented innovators, I helped launch the campaign, managed external partnerships with major foundations, produced Anderson Cooper and, primarily, helped manage the storytelling from nomination to vetting, story selection, staffing, story production and distribution on to all networks of CNN Worldwide for more than 18 years.”
Read more in Take The Lead on gender, race gaps in journalism
Take The Lead’s 50 Women cohort has been an important addition to her work and life, GénecéPatterson says, as a source of “warmth, grace, support, honesty, vulnerability, persistence and creativity for me. I look at the 9 Leadership Power Tools and I learned the power of knowing your story in that cohort.”
She adds, “I keep going back to my story as a way of staying connected to myself. It is a fruitful tool to bolster me, as focusing in on my story is very grounding. I remember what it meant that my parents came from Haiti and were successful here.”
Read more in Take The Lead on women in television
For anyone, Génecé Patterson says, it is crucial to, “Just remember of who you come, where you come and how you come, and get reoriented.”
Anise Fuller, founder and chief operating office of Walk By Faith Productions, directing a recent film production.
Anise Fuller, Power Tool Champion, The Activator, for Power Tool # 9, Tell Your Story, is aligned with Genece Patterson on the power of storytelling to change minds and lives.
Fuller always wanted to be on stage, she says, and was “a pageant kid,” from the time she was 12. The middle child with two sisters and three brothers growing up in Detroit, the filmmaker says, “I was never shy.”
Read more in Take The Lead on the power of story
Trying to figure out her talent, Fuller says, her father enrolled her in a dance academy, “and that changed my life. I got a four-year dance scholarship to Wayne State University.” The founder and chief operating officer of Walk By Faith Productions, says she also earned an MBA from Howard University, then moved to Los Angeles and began working in film post-production.
In 2007, Fuller began at Warner Bros. in home entertainment and became communications director for the Black Employees organization, putting together training programs, events, panels. Next, Fuller worked at NBC Universal, where she worked on DEI initiatives, doing community outreach and also volunteering for non-profit boards.
Read more in Take The Lead on framing history through story
“I tell every teenager to always volunteer and don’t expect to get anything, just turn that around and give back,” Fuller says.
““I tell every teenager to always volunteer and don’t expect to get anything, just turn that around and give back,” @AniseFuller, Power Tool Champion @takeleadwomen. #leadership #mentorship ”
Having a daughter during COVID, and later facing a divorce, Fuller uses her experience as a single mother for advocacy to create change in filmmaking and beyond. Starting her own production company, Walk By Faith Productions, Fuller is committed to increasing diversity behind the camera and serves as a board director for Alliance of Women Directors and also as events chair for Black Directors Advancement Initiative.
Participating in the Take The Lead 50 Women Can Change The World in Entrepreneurship cohort in 2023, Fuller says the tools and information she learned was extremely valuable.
Read more in Take The Lead on 50 Women in Entrepreneurship
“I learned how to pitch to investors and make my business stand out,” she says. “Take The Lead literally changed my life when it came to pitching investors. It made me look at things a different way. It had me look at what language to use.”
The cohort also forced her to look at herself and her work differently.
“I’m not thinking about myself,” she says. “I am thinking about who I can inspire, and what it means for young girls who look like me and young boys with my skin color. You can break glass ceilings no matter what you’re going through.”
““I am thinking about who I can inspire, and what it means for young girls who look like me and young boys with my skin color. You can break glass ceilings no matter what you’re going through.” @anisefuller @AWD_Directors #Black #Directors Advancement Initiative #arts. ”
Read more in Take The Lead on entrepreneurship tips
This viewpoint has been transformative, she says. “Anything you go through, is not just for yourself; it’s for somebody else to show them they can do it regardless the situation.”
“ “Anything you go through, is not just for yourself; it’s for somebody else to show them they can do it regardless the situation.” @anisefuller @takeleadwomen #PowerUp2025 #couragetolead ”
Fuller will share her insights as she accepts the Power Tool Champion Award, along with Genece Patterson and others, at the Power Up Conference 2025 on Women’s Equality Day, with the theme, Courage To Lead.
