Sarah Kate Ellis’s big challenge hasn’t been being a woman or being gay—it’s been her own self-doubt.
“The biggest barrier in my career was probably myself. My own head, getting in my own way, thinking that I could be less than because I was a woman or because I was gay,” she tells Fortune.
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Before Ellis became the CEO and president of GLAAD—the media monitoring organization founded by LGBT people in the media—she tried to blend in as just another heterosexual media executive. “When I started my career, I never was out because I thought it would really hurt my career, so I was very, very quiet about my private life,” Ellis recalls.
“It wasn’t until I actually came out that I felt like my career really flourished because then I was being authentic and true and that showed in the work that I was doing,” she says.
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And flourish it did: Ellis oversaw the turnarounds of a number of media brands at Condé Nast and Time Inc. (TIME), as well as the launch the lifestyle magazine Real Simple, before taking on her current role at GLAAD.
