Women At The Helm 2013
President and CEO, GLAAD
Media virtuoso Sarah Kate Ellis is the brains behind some of our national media brands’ biggest success stories—and she’ll use her wide-ranging experience in her new role, as president and CEO of GLAAD. Her direction and ideas have energized outlets including Real Simple, Vogue, House & Garden, InStyle and New York, and she’s also using those skills to empower our community. As a cochair of OUT at Time, Inc., this outspoken advocate and brilliant communications strategist led programming to spotlight the diversity of the LGBT community and worked to educate the organization’s straight allies on LGBT issues. Throughout her career, she has earned seven MIN awards for marketing innovation, two President’s Awards, and MIN’s Sales Executive Team of the Year award in 2012, and recently served as Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Martini Media. You might also recognize Ellis from the memoir she co-authored with her wife Kristen Ellis-Henderson in 2011, Times Two: Two Women in Love and the Happy Family They Made, an autobiography about their simultaneous pregnancies and road to motherhood. What’s she up to now? Let’s just say the board of directors of GLAAD didn’t have to look far to find the perfect candidate to serve as their new leader: Ellis will step into the role in January, in GLAAD’s NYC office. Ellis says she’s excited to further cultivate GLAAD’s work in the media and share stories from our community: “I look forward to creating a world where LGBT people and our families have the freedom to joyously—and openly—live a life they love!”
Today, business owners incorporate their beliefs in fairness and equality into their work. Nonprofit directors combine their passion for social justice with managerial prowess. Meet the new wave of out leaders who talk the talk and walk the walk.
ALLIE ESSLINGER
Founder, Olive Juice Films and Section II
A Southern transplant living in Brooklyn, Allie Esslinger is the founder of Olive Juice Films, a company producing projects across genres, including documentaries, feature films, web series, live comedy, and commercial campaigns. “Despite the fact that there are over 225 LGBTQ film festivals each year, only 17 films with queer female characters made it to theaters in 2012,” she tells GO about her mission. “We want to work with filmmakers and distributors to get those films onto our destination platform so that the audiences who weren’t able to attend the festivals still have a chance to see the films.” In that vein, Esslinger is also developing Section II, an online and streaming platform for curated, high-quality lesbian content, designed to deliver a cinematic experience to viewers who aren’t able—or aren’t comfortable enough—to go and see it in theaters. The name “Section II” refers to Section II of the Motion Picture Production Code that dealt with sex and outlawed lesbian films until 1968. Because this new venture will be dedicated to improving the representation of queer women in popular culture, Esslinger says, it’s a fitting way to “repurpose our namesake in order to showcase the truly exceptional films that have been made since the ban was lifted.”
