Gabriella O’Keefe

I attribute my success to two things. One, I would attribute my success to my mother, who initially got me into this space. I job-shadowed her for about a year, and it was really, really insightful. It opened my mind up. She works for an advertising agency that's women-owned, and although I'm not in advertising and I don't love the salesy space of that world, I cannot thank her enough for opening me up. I worked alongside her for many, many months. She showed me the ins and the outs. She showed me what her leadership looked like. She made me realize I wanted to go to school for business management, because she's been co-owner slash leader of her organization now for many years. If I can be half the woman that she is, that's my ideal life and goal. But also I could attribute my success to my eagerness. I feel like Gen Z has, nowadays, a perception and narrative that we're lazy, and we don't want to work, and we don't like to be told what to do. And although I can agree to that to an extent, there's a vast majority of Gen Zers that actually do want to learn and do want to step in a space where they can grow and be the best versions of themselves. So I would also attribute it to my eagerness to learn at a young age. Between both, I think both have really ultimately led me to where I am now.

The best career advice I ever received came from my first boss out of college, who graduated back in 2023. She told me that I deserve a seat at the table. She said to make my presence known, that I should assert myself, that I should never feel like I don't know enough to have that seat at the table, because I am in the position that I am in because people believed in me. That always resonates with me, because, you know, especially being a woman, and being young, and trying to be in more of a leadership role, I feel like a lot of times people look down on me, they brush me off, they don't include me on emails because I'm not seen as the person that makes decisions or is able to lead a group. That's just not the case. Honestly, that thing I always think back to is that I deserve a seat at the table. I've worked really hard, and I pride myself in the work that I've done thus far, and I cannot allow my thoughts or the thoughts and opinions of others to tear me down and make me feel like I'm not where I should be.

Honestly, exactly what I was given: you deserve a seat at the table, as long as you work hard, and you are eager to learn and to grow, and you're able to prove that. I think that, especially in my field, in the journalism space, we need more women, we need more people of color, we need younger people, we need a well-balanced overall demographic that will advance our industry forward. We just had a conference last week, and I spoke to so many young women. It was so, so, so inspirational to me to see so many like-minded women in the field that are younger, or even if they were older, people of color. It was so invaluable to see how excited and energized they are to really strengthen our community in the journalism space. It was very, very promising and endearing, and, again, I would tell any women, you deserve a seat at the table.

I think the biggest challenge is, ironic, but communicating. Being able to relay to our audience content that resonates, and, you know, get engagement out of is probably the most challenging part. Also communicating amongst people within my industry. I deal with all different types of personalities on a day-to-day basis, and no two days are the same. So, I guess my biggest challenge is being able to relay my perspective to a broad audience, having it land, and really allowing them to really think about it, and ultimately engage. My biggest thing that I want to focus on in 2026, and even 2027 and beyond, is to get as much audience engagement and audience retention.

I think my biggest value is to be ethical and to be a kind human being. I think that is my huge, biggest value that I honestly judge people off of. If you are not ethical and you are not a good human, that automatically sets you apart in a negative way, in my book. I think those two traits are so important, especially now with everything going on in the world. Those are the values that I was brought up on, to be a kind person to everyone, treat others the way you want to be treated. And I feel like that is more prevalent now more than ever.