Patricia Mays

Mays oversees a number of assignment editors, who work directly with reporters. She also partners with news and blog editing teams to manage all the content across digital platforms. In the coming year, she will continue to lead homepage and daily coverage across many platforms, regions and core product pillars. In addition, she recently participated on a “Combatting Stereotypes of Women in Media” panel at the annual Association for Women in Sports Convention. “People often oversimplify when talking about diversity,” she says.

Best business advice you’ve received?

“Get out of the weeds.” As simple as it sounds, this piece of advice marked a huge turning point in my career and ultimately has made me a better manager. I thought being in the trenches every day with my team showed I was committed and would earn me respect. Instead, it kept me from the time needed to do my real job – thinking strategically about how best to grow and move our business forward; looking for ways to make us better, more competitive. The biggest gain to “getting out of the weeds” is that it has empowered my staff to step up and take on more responsibility and has opened up more growth and development opportunities for them.

How do you define diversity?

People often oversimplify when talking about diversity – the conversation quickly turns to race and gender when it’s so much more than that. Diversity is representing different viewpoints that are shaped by different life experiences — and that could encompass anything from religion to education to geography.

How can cable better support diversity?

Without question, we should make sure our content programming across all platforms is reflective of the audience we serve. But more importantly, we must work to have executives and leaders across the industry – where key decisions are routinely made – comprised of men and women from various backgrounds who understand and represent that audience.