Patricia Sellers

Women leaders tend to think about power horizontally—and manage that way too. Having spent the past 20 years studying women leaders—and building Most Powerful Women into Fortune’s biggest and most valuable franchise—Pattie Sellers has gained unparalleled access to America’s top women leaders and has keen insights into what makes women successful (and not) in business, philanthropy, government and beyond. Her views are provocative and can be controversial: The concept of the glass ceiling is overplayed, she believes, and women hold themselves back by feeling uncomfortable with power. Wise women leaders embrace power—in different ways than most men do.

Entrepreneurs drive economic recovery—and women are key. While Sellers has spent most of her 26 years at Fortune writing about leaders of large companies, her purview is much broader. She has written definitive (and exclusive) cover stories on world-changing entrepreneurs and leaders from across the business spectrum. Sellers talks about the common traits of outstanding business-builders and also explores stories of prominent people who have discovered fresh passion to start new lives after their careers in business.

The most successful people think of their careers as jungle gyms, where the rewards come from moving in various directions and not just up. Sounds scary, but particularly in this fast-changing and unpredictable world, you should not think of your career as just climbing a ladder. More than ever, you need peripheral vision and the ability to think broadly. An expert on the traits needed to navigate a successful career, Pattie Sellers shows how flexibility—in both managing and being managed—is an increasingly critical trait in today’s workplaces. Success favors the highly adaptable who are ready to swing to opportunities over here and over there.