#104: Heidi Diamond (Reinventing your job when your boss is sent to jail)

“My twitter handle is ‘Warrior,’” says Heidi Diamond, “You want to be in the foxhole with me.”  And a foxhole is exactly where she found herself on her first day at work as President of  Martha Stewart Living Ominimedia in August 2002. Stewart was in trouble for insider trading and the television partner wanted out. “Every day I went to the court house,” says Diamond of the trial. “Every evening at five it was crisis management.” By being a “good communicator” and “transparent with the team,” however, she was able to pivot the brand and save the jobs of people who depended on Stewart’s show. “There were days when my eyelashes hurt,” Diamond says. “But we rose [Martha] back up like a phoenix….She’s still relevant to popular culture today.”