During the Forbes Power Women’s Summit in September, I sat down with Maggie McGrath, editor of ForbesWomen, anchor for ForbesTV, and author of the ForbesWomen newsletter.
You are the editor of ForbesWomen, anchor for ForbesTV, and author of the ForbesWomen newsletter. That’s quite the role. Can you break down your day-to-day for us?
There is no typical day. Thursday mornings usually start with me writing the newsletter, though, and if we’re lucky, it goes out at noon Eastern.
Truly, it depends on the news cycle. ForbesTV is our breaking news video platform that lives on Forbes.com and YouTube. So for that, I could be talking to the folks at AccuWeather about the latest hurricane. I could be talking to a women’s rights organizer about the latest rollback for abortion access. It really depends on the news cycle, so that is gender-agnostic.
Most weeks, I usually am at 30 Rock for a Know Your Value hit, because our partners on the 50 Over 50 are Mika Brzezinski and her Know Your Value initiative. So, we are usually doing a segment talking about the list, or interviewing someone from the list for the Morning Joe audience.
When I put on my ForbesWomen hat, I am talking to founders and CEOs who happen to be women, but working across every sector of the economy, and 11 out of 12 months of the year, I’m usually working on a Forbes list for ForbesWomen. Currently, we’re gearing up for the Forbes 50 Over 50 global list. It is the global edition of our 50 Over 50.
Tell me more about timing for these lists.
We launched the U.S. 50 Over 50 list in July, and that was for entrepreneurs and leaders in the U.S. Now, we’re looking around the world.
We always do the 50 Over 50 U.S. list in the summer, and then in the fall, we open up nominations and ask people to tell us about the founders, inventors, and CEOs who live in Asia, Australia, or the African continent, and who are creating change there. And the idea is to show the world that it’s not just American women who are stepping into power after the age of 50, but that you can be anywhere in the world doing cool work.
You manage the 50 Over 50 and the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women lists, and previously edited the 30 Under 30 Food & Drink list and the Just 100. What does it take to make the list?
For any of our age-based lists, the No. 1 requirement is that you are the age that we are looking for. I got a pitch for the 50 Over 50 list from someone who was born in 1989, and they caught me on a day when I was so cranky that I posted it on my Instagram. It was the story that got the most interactions of anything I’ve posted all year.
For our 30 Under 30, while I no longer work on that list, I work with [those editors] quite closely across the year on events and other Forbes moments. They’ll get questions from people who are like, “Well, she’s turning 30 in two days,”—yet the list is 30 UNDER 30. Sounds simple, but that trips a lot of people up.
Beyond being the correct age, Forbes is all about entrepreneurial capitalism. So for most of these lists, we’re looking at something qualitative—like you’re stepping into your power. We’re looking for founders. We’re looking for people who have started things and who are using their entrepreneurial energy to bring change to a sector or to a mission that they care about.
Our list of The World’s Most Powerful Women is a little bit different, because that’s where we’re serving the world and looking at who holds the power, who is running the largest companies, the largest countries. We’re looking at GDP and revenue. For this list, we’re not asking for submissions, because we can basically do a stock screen and see what the largest companies are, who their chief executives are, and calibrate the list.
For example, General Motors CEO Mary Barra has consistently been recognized on Forbes’ World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list, holding high rankings such as No. 5 in 2024. We’re looking at people who run significant companies or institutions, and what affects the rankings is almost what happens politically. For example, when Angela Merkel was no longer chancellor of Germany, it opened up a huge conversation about how she had been objectively the world’s most powerful woman for years, and when she was no longer in that position of power, it required us to look at other heads of state, other heads of foundations—other billionaires who are using their money for change.
There are some billionaires who pass [their wealth] on to their kids and are not as active with it. It’s why you’ll see MacKenzie Scott on that list, but not necessarily Jacqueline Mars. So while we typically talk to sources and look for public nominations for the 30 Under 30, for any Power list, we as Forbes reporters and editors have the ability to look at the world and see who has the power and use our own powers of analysis and number crunching to quantify that power.
You moderate many of Forbes’ most prestigious events, including today’s Forbes Power Women’s Summit. What is your favorite thing about these events?
I love how they break me out of my day-to-day. I talk to a lot of people on a regular basis, but for the women’s focused events, in particular, they have come in moments when I have gotten discouraged by the news cycle or overwhelmed by the news cycle and it’s inspiring.
It goes back to our very first issue in 1917, which was all about dreamers and doers. When I am interviewing people on stage who are dreaming and doing, if I’ve had a bad week, a bad month, or I’m just in my head, it pulls me out of that.
And as an anecdote, I’ll share that when we were in Abu Dhabi earlier this year, we had just seen a tremendous amount of RIFs [reductions in force] for federal jobs for people working in research and medicine, and that affected some friends of mine, so I was feeling it personally and watching with a broken heart as these people were losing their jobs. I was so anxious about going to Abu Dhabi and doing this big conference that has a tremendous amount of valuable content, but nonetheless, I was nervous: Would I be in the mood to be in a celebratory environment, if that’s what was required of me on a given night? I talked to one banking executive at the end of the event, and she was like, “Honestly, this is exactly what I needed,” because you talk to these women who come from all over the world, who have these diverse experiences, and it shows you what’s possible, and it reminds you that what you are going through, you can overcome. When you hear a former refugee talk about fleeing her country and re-establishing her life, it just puts everything into perspective.
The Forbes Power Women’s Summit is in its 13th year, convening women leaders from around the world to share how they’re “building what’s next.” What were some of the big themes you heard for what’s next?
AI and how we interact with and/or adopt AI in our day-to-day lives and jobs. I think that is a tangible subject about what’s next. But I think as we heard from Hoda Kotb on what’s next, there were people at the Summit who’ve had positions of power, who might be getting ready to step down or make a change, and it’s literally figuring out what is next.
The two other themes I always see through this conference, and through our coverage, is women gaining increasing power in healthcare, and I saw that with Melinda Gates’ announcement. Creating a healthy society means understanding that women’s bodies are different, and that a heart attack manifests differently for a man and a woman. So I think that’s been a theme over the past few years at the conference—understanding the need to invest specifically in women’s health, and then likewise investing in women’s sports, or women who work in sports, and also increasing the valuation for women’s teams and women’s leagues.
What’s driving your and your team’s coverage these days?
As it relates to ForbesWomen, we continue to look for the women who are building successful companies. So sometimes that will literally be a funding announcement, or it’ll be a trend. We got a pitch the other day for a company dealing in fiber, and we’ve seen “fiber maxing” on social media. So then that’s where I go to one of our assistant editors and say, “OK, there might be something here. Can someone look into this?” So it’s reactive in the sense that I see what the trends are, but also trying to be proactive and figuring out who is building the next billion-dollar startup as it relates to Forbes breaking news.
From an editorial perspective, we’re thinking of what news has broken overnight, and is at the top of all of our feeds, that Forbes should be weighing in on and using our Rolodexes to get experts to comment on.
What do the best PR pitches you get include, and what’s the best way to pitch you?
Not on Instagram DM, not on LinkedIn, not on WhatsApp, and not by text. I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of social media platforms that exist and prefer to be pitched exclusively on email.
Ok, so email is best. When a PR person emails you a pitch or opportunity, what’s going to make you respond?
Exclusive access is great, but the business has to have been around for more than six months. I get a lot of pitches about a company that has just launched—but a lot of things have just launched. Sure, I could tell you that my Pilates company just launched. We need to see stability, progress, and growth.
So you’re less interested in early-stage startups? Companies need to be more established?
I’ve covered companies coming out of stealth, which is different to me, because they’ve been operating, and they can say, “We’ve been in stealth for the past two years … we have this data to show you, and we already have this number of customers.” It’s a tangible product.
To me, you can have a tangible company at launch. Forbes is interested in telling the journeys of those companies, too. We tell stories about people, but there needs to be something more than what it took to launch the company. The pitches that have caught my attention, sometimes, just happen to be at the right place at the right time.
I do a lot of video series. One of those is the CXO Spotlight, so if I’m looking for a C-suite executive and have sponsorship for the series—and that’s crucial for production for the series—and someone pitches me an exec while I’m in production and I don’t already have the entire slate of episodes figured out, what great timing. Unfortunately, that’s not something I can tell people [very far ahead of time]. I’ve built good relationships with some PR people, almost because of that really fortunate timing.
The other thing I would say is I encourage people not to use AI to write their pitches. I received one pitch that said, “Maggie, I’m impressed by your powerful narratives like the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World.” and I’m like, “That’s not a narrative. That’s a list.” I can tell when it’s AI, and I will ignore the pitch if I think AI has written it.
Likewise, I encourage you to look at our recent coverage. I will get pitches for entrepreneurs who have just been on the cover of Forbes, and it’ll be like, “So and so was on the cover of Forbes,” or, “So and so is the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.” It’s like, “Yeah, I know that: We broke that story,” so be aware of what we’ve put out, and especially the lists.
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