Delaney remembers how Lauren Brown pushed him

Quartz founding editor Kevin Delaney writes about how director of special projects Lauren Brown — who died this week at age 37 — pushed him in his own job.

Delaney writes, “As editor of Quartz, I often found Lauren pushing me. She convinced me to create an entrepreneur-in-residence program, through her infectious enthusiasm for the broad range of people whom she wanted to bring into our work lives. She insisted we, a digitally native media startup, produce a custom book, on our own, and take responsibility for practically everything but sourcing the paper. She could be impatient. Lauren didn’t mince words in telling me in a room full of colleagues that I was doing something wrong. It was vital feedback.

“She also thoughtfully reached out with empathy when she sensed things weren’t easy. I recently received a message from Lauren that began with five sparkly heart emojis. ‘Proud of you,’ Lauren wrote. ‘You’re such a special person in my life and will always be.’

“Quartz’s staff has an extensive collection of animated gifs of bunnies thanks to Lauren. She regularly shared photos of her cherished nephew and niece in Cleveland. Her Twitter commentary was often the profound disguised as the mundane. And she sometimes upbraided colleagues for not keeping up with the Bachelor TV show so she could compare thoughts with them.”

Read more here.