Sheri Salata

Under Salata, OWN experienced its most-watched quarter in its history in Q1 2014, with Emmys for “Oprah’s Lifeclass” and “Super Soul Sunday” accruing over the course of the year. OWN’s first TV movie, “My Name Is Love,” featuring Toni Braxton as Darlene Love, airs in December. A mini-series about the Tulsa race riots, starring Oscar winner Octavia Spencer, is also underway. Among the ways Salata measures a successful career? “Do you adore the people you conspire with? Are you laughing a lot?”

What’s been the biggest story in cable this year?

I love the ever-evolving sophistication and cleverness of cable marketing. Especially FX. Awesome work.

How do you define a successful career?

Defining a successful career is an internal evaluation for starters.  And best answered by a couple of wonderful questions: Does it make you happy? Do you delight in your days? Do you adore the people you conspire with? Is joy a big piece of that daily pie? Are you laughing a lot?

Best trick for maintaining the personal-professional life balance? 

On an eight-city arena tour with Oprah a few weeks ago, the wonderfully wise Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) said: “My career is my life – it is my calling and so it is my life and I am so grateful that ‘my calling’ also embraces my love life, my family, my spiritual life, my hobbies and all of the rest.”  So, thank you Liz – I so resonate with your words that I have adopted them as my new way of moving through the world. And now I feel a freedom and peace with the notion of balance that works for me. If you are doing what you are “called” to do – the thing that makes your heart sing – then all the puzzle pieces fit perfectly in perfect time and balance becomes irrelevant.