Marty Petty, President & CEO of The MPetty Group

Who is a woman who inspires you?

When I was named publisher and CEO at The Hartford Courant, the oldest, continually published newspaper in the country, I became the paper’s first woman publisher in 220 years. Hannah B. Watson became the first woman publisher in 1777. She replaced her husband when he died of smallpox. George Washington was not yet president. With 5 children under the age of 7 to care for, Hannah had to go into partnership with another man, George Goodwin to continue publishing the paper.

“Within a month, a second disaster struck: Tory supporters set fire to the mill that provided printing paper to The Courant and writing paper to the state. In a joint statement, Hannah Watson and George Goodwin announced the imminent demise of the Courant, its last issue to be on February 3, 1778. Then in a last-ditch effort, Watson and Sarah Ledyard, co-owners of the mill, appealed to the Connecticut Assembly for help. Within hours, the Assembly authorized the establishment of a state-wide lottery to rescue the paper. The lottery was a success and the mill was rebuilt. The Courant never missed an issue—to this day, a proud boast. Hannah Watson later remarried, and under her leadership the Connecticut Courant (which became a daily in 1837 called the Hartford Courant) focused on issues related to temperance, cleanliness and scientific stories.”

Copyright: Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, Inducted 1994

What’s a risk you took that paid off?

 It took me 14 years to work my way up through the ranks at The Hartford Courant ultimately moving from the newsroom to the business side. However, it was a very rough beginning for me.  

In my early 30s, my former publisher at the Kansas City Star and Times in KC, MO recruited me to Hartford, CT to become the managing editor of The Hartford Courant, the oldest, continuously published newspaper in the country that had gone from employee-owned to a prestigious property, part of the Times Mirror newspaper family back in the early 80s. He was the new publisher at The Courant. Suddenly, I was supposed to lead 7 veteran newspaper men, 15 years my senior whom the LA Times had reassigned there to create the LA Times of the East. Alone in my hotel room that first week, I cried myself to sleep every night certain I had made a big mistake. I was in way over my head. The desk was getting the front page to the composing room late every night, papers were being delivered late and no one in the newsroom seemed to care. Shortly, I made some key hires, people who could lead and whom I trusted. I reassigned some of the LA crew and a few quit or returned to LA. Fast forward to 1992.

We won the paper’s first Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, for a 4-day investigative series reporting about the problems with the Hubble Space Telescope, partially constructed by a Connecticut company.

How do you handle being underestimated?

In the New York Times’ reporting of my hiring a new Editor at The Hartford Courant from the Philadelphia News, the Inquirer’s “feisty” afternoon daily for commuters, I was referred to as Mr. Petty upon second mention per the NYT style. First mention, I was Marty Petty. The copy desk just “assumed” I was a man. Reporters on my Business Desk went “b__llsh_t.” I asked them to stand down, I knew how to handle this. See, I knew the publisher of the NYT and I was certain he hadn’t read the story or if he did, he ignored it. But, to me, this would be fun. I dropped him a personal note to tease him. ”Humor is a great tonic for anger.”

Shockingly, I received a note back, addressed to Mr. Marty Petty. My folks rightfully asked for a correction, which ran on the bottom of page 2. The short correction declared…“Marty Petty is a woman.” My business desk gave me the correction printed on a t-shirt. The article and correction are framed and hanging on the wall of my office. When the reporter who had written the story first realized the error, she called me mortified. She knew me from her internship at The Courant. She wanted my advice. I suggested she let her feelings be known, calmly and respectfully, to her editor.

Advice for emerging female professionals early in their careers.

Be authentic, honest and true to your values. And, when you are making your next career move, think about your legacy. When you’ve moved on, what do you want people to say about you?

“I miss ________________. She was so good at__________________.”  Surround yourself with people different from you, smarter than you and people who will push back on you. Very effective leaders will make these critical hires, develop and coach them and then get out of their way. When you share power and control, and delegate, just know they may make decisions you disagree with, and often a bad decision, but unless it’s truly harmful to the business, this is how we all learn. But most importantly, don’t make that same mistake again.