Kim Droege

I attribute my success to my parents, without a doubt. I was raised by depression era parents, and from the time I was old enough to understand what college or university meant, I was continually encouraged and supported with the idea I would be pursuing higher education. But the one thing my parents shared from the time I was a little girl and throughout my life, is 'you can be anything you want to be as long as you want it badly enough. There's nothing you can't do. You are as good and deserving as anybody else.' These were the positive messages my parents consistently delivered to me. I wanted to achieve my best no matter what I pursued. But even if my parents hadn't been so encouraging and supportive, I think I have a kind of goal oriented personality. I had a Manager at IBM who shared during a performance review, 'Kim, I never worry about you, because no matter what the obstacle, you will either find a way around it, under it, over it, or you will eliminate it.' Those words describe me in a nutshell. I've always been very driven and results oriented. That's my personality, who I am. For me, No is where we start negotiating.

The best career advice I’ve ever received comes from two sources: my parents taught me that I can be anything I want if I truly desire it, and an IBM manager once told me I always find a way around or through obstacles, which reinforced the value of my perseverance and creative problem-solving.

My advice to young women entering this industry is to take your personal brand and social media seriously, protect your professional presence online, and be persistent and determined about preparation and networking.

The biggest challenge to my industry now is everyone can produce a podcast and no longer just audio, video, too. The competition is amazing. When you compete for a Telly, you're competing against all the major networks worldwide such as Paramount Studios, Al Jazeera, Disney, to name a few, plus all of the folks with videos across the world. If you just look at the submissions to the Telly Awards and the growth over the years, you will see it's the biggest challenge to the industry. This year they'll receive more than the 13,000 submissions from last year and they keep expanding the categories for consideration. I think quality of content is a major challenge. When you have your own podcast, you can control and tailor the content very carefully. Another very big challenge is the amount of negativity and vitriol on social media. You think you're posting something innocuous, not controversial, but everybody today can sit behind their keyboard or phone and comment whatever they want. There's really nothing you can do about it other than ignoring, blocking or deleting. You can't escape it. You think you're producing good stuff in the world, but there may be some folks who don't think you're doing good work at all, and feel free to share. If they don't like the guest you had on your program or harbor some animosity towards your guest, they will share. It can sometimes be very disheartening.

The values most important to me are persistence, continuous learning, new experiences, growth and curiosity; being trustworthy, kind and authentic in my work; and engaging meaningfully with my community. I also believe true success is about family, balance in all aspects of life and leaving a lasting legacy, as shown when I paused my show and other community pursuits to reassess, realign and reprioritize in order to spend time taking care of my personal life, home and enjoying more adventures with my 97-year-old mother now.