Pat Mitchell

Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls. At every step of her career, Mitchell hasbroken new ground for women, leveraging the power of media as a journalist, an Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated producer to tell women’s stories and increase the representation ofwomen onscreen and off. Transitioning to an executive role, she became the president of CNNProductions, and the first woman president and CEO of PBS and the Paley Center for Media. Today,her commitment to connect and strengthen a global community of women leaders continues as aconference curator, advisor and mentor.

In partnership with TED, Mitchell launched TEDWomen in 2010 and is its editorial director, curatorand host. She is also a speaker and curator for the annual Women Working for the World forum inBogota, Colombia, the Her Village conference in Beijing, and co-chairs the US board of Women ofthe World (WOW). She partners with the Rockefeller Foundation to curate, convene and hostConnected Women Leaders (CWL) forums, focused on collective problem solving among womenleaders in government and civil society.

In 2014, the Women’s Media Center honored Mitchell with its first-annual Lifetime AchievementAward, now named in her honor to commend other women whose media careers advance therepresentation of women. Recognized by Hollywood Reporter as one of the most powerful womenin media, Fast Company’s “League of Extraordinary Women” and Huffington Post’s list of “Powerful Women Over 50,” Mitchell also received the Sandra Day O'Connor Award for Leadership. She wasa contributor to Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership, andwrote the introduction to the book and museum exhibition, 130 Women of Impact in 30 Countries.In 2016, she received a Congressional appointment to The American Museum of Women’s HistoryAdvisory Council, and in 2019 was named to the Gender Equality Top 100 list of women leaders byApolitical.

Mitchell is active with many nonprofit organizations, serving as the chair of the board of the Sundance Institute and formerly as the Co-Chair Women’s Media Center. She is a founding member of the VDAYmovement and on the boards of the Skoll Foundation and the Acumen Fund. She is also an advisorto Participant Media and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mitchell is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds a master's degree inEnglish literature and several honorary doctorate degrees. She is the author of Becoming aDangerous Woman: Embracing Risk to Change the World. She and her husband, Scott Seydel, livein Atlanta and have six children and 13 grandchildren.

Follow Ms. Mitchell on Twitter @patmitchell.

Pat Mitchell and the Women's Media Center