Women need to be in key operational roles where they run businesses in the organization. Sometimes when organizations focus on leadership diversity, they're mostly in areas like HR or non-operating line functions.

If you're going to succeed, then you just have to be thick-skinned. It's something I developed early in my career, and it just goes with the territory.

It doesn't matter what your pedigree is, who your family is or what degrees you have. What really matters is how you perform your job and how you produce results. Whoever could do the best job, that's who the focus is on - and it definitely doesn't matter if I am a woman or a man.

Back when I was looking for my next step and was researching Gannett, I was interested in who was leading the various businesses within the organization: Are there a lot of women and minorities in important, operational roles, senior management and the board of directors?