22 Jan CEO Woman: Blazing Her Own Path
Embracing the “pioneer spirit,” Gaby Natale is no stranger to setting her own course
By L’oreal Thompson Payton
As a triple Daytime Emmy Award–winning journalist and the first Latina to be published by HarperCollins Leadership, author and motivational speaker Gaby Natale is accustomed to breaking barriers. She is among an elite group of women in the entertainment industry who not only owns the rights to her media content but owns her own television studio as well.
Her best-selling book, The Virtuous Circle, offers readers tangible strategies on awakening the “pioneer spirit” within them and channeling their strengths and talents to work to their advantage.
In addition to being a highly sought-after thought leader and motivational speaker, Natale feeds her entrepreneurial spirit as the president and founder of AGANARmedia, a content development and experiential marketing company with a focus on Latinx audiences. Recently, Natale was named the top speaker for Hispanic Heritage Month 2024 by the AAE Speakers Bureau.
Executive Woman: You often speak about having a pioneer spirit. How do you define it, and how can other women cultivate it in their own lives?
Gaby Natale: I always talk about being a pioneer or embracing the pioneer spirit in contrast to being an emulator. When you emulate, you look around—you see what everyone else is doing, and you want to emulate what they’re doing. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. You can be perfectly happy embracing an emulator mindset all your life if that’s what you want to do. But if we all emulate what everyone else is doing, our best-case scenario is the current status quo. And we can do better. Sometimes the status quo is not good enough, and we want more. We crave more for our lives and for the world.
The way to embrace the pioneer spirit is to look around, see what everyone else is doing, and set your goal. You look to whatever you want to do even before you have the validation because too many times we want the results that validate that vision. So to embrace the pioneer spirit, you give yourself permission to do something no one else like you has done. Because it doesn’t matter how big or how small that step is … every time we choose to pioneer, we move the world forward. And that is something we can all do from our own roles.
EW: How did you learn to embrace your uniqueness?
GN: I’ve always felt comfortable in my own skin. I was always one of those people who marched to the beat of their own drum. But what happened was I’m an immigrant. I came to the United States from Argentina for a fresh start. What I realized is that when I was in Argentina, because I was a woman speaking multiple languages and I was educated, the perception was that I was a young lady with a bright future. And here I was sometimes being stereotyped or looked down upon. So I had a choice: I realized if I wanted to be respected, I had to respect myself first. If I wanted to be valued, I had to value myself first. That’s when I really chose to embrace my uniqueness because it was something that was natural at some point, but then it was a deliberate choice that I had to make.
EW: What role does diversity and inclusion play in an ever-evolving media industry, and what actions can leaders take to promote it?
GN: I think it’s very important first to educate people that this is not just the right thing to do—this is a smart business decision. A lot of people have a feeling that [DEI] is a charity case, and we’re not talking about handouts. We’re talking about smart business decisions. We’re talking about having leaders who are reflective of the audiences that they serve.
There are not enough people with diverse ideas. Everybody’s seeing the world from the same perspective. The other side of a blind spot is a white space, and in that white space is where opportunity lies and flourishes.
EW: What has been your biggest obstacle thus far, and how did you overcome it?
GN: I don’t know if it’s the biggest obstacle, but it’s been an obstacle that I had this year, and it’s taken all of me to overcome it. This year I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I’m healthy, and I’m fine now. I’ve had successful surgeries, and I’m finishing chemo and radiation, but that’s been a tough obstacle. But I thought about how I treated other obstacles in the past: I created my own way out of no way. I created books. I created a conference. I created so many things, and now I’m partnering with Susan G. Komen to raise awareness about early detection because I’m a patient, a survivor, a warrior. I was also a caregiver for my own mom, and this is something that is going to happen to one in eight women. And it looks very different if you have early detection. It’s up to us to take action to save those lives. I think this could be a weird invitation from life to have a positive impact.
EW: What advice would you give your younger self?
GN: Don’t jump to permanent conclusions based on temporary circumstances. So many times I felt defeated. In Argentina, I spent two years unemployed. I’d graduated with a master’s degree in journalism, ready to conquer the world, but the world had a very different plan for me. I graduated at a time when Argentina had one of its biggest crises, with 20 percent unemployment, five presidents in 10 days, and a lot of social instability, hyperinflation, and all of those things.
So I spent two years unemployed, and I was this close to convincing myself that I would never be able to work in media or be a speaker or do many of the things that became a reality later, and it was all because of temporary circumstances. And I wouldn’t tell that just to my younger self. This year I had to tell that to myself many times. EW
L’Oreal Thompson Payton is an award-winning journalist and the author of Stop Waiting for Perfect: Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Into Your Power.
The Résumé
Name: Gaby Natale
Company: AGANARmedia
Job title: Founder and president
City: Dallas–Fort Worth
Favorite quote: “Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.” —Wayne Dyer
