Andy Serwer, now editor in chief of Yahoo Finance, writes on LinkedIn about mentoring young reporter Julia Boorstin, now at CNBC.
Serwer writes, “I think she had written for the school’s literary magazine. So she was either going to try be the next Joyce Carol Oates, or the next Carol Loomis. Julia chose the latter. As she acknowledges — and like most of us at that stage in life — she had a steep learning curve. But Julia was game. Very game. She was smart, hard working and figured things out very quickly. Julia wanted to make it all work, and she did. She was as upbeat then as she is today — and yes what you see on CNBC is pretty much her real personality. She almost always has that friendly yet quizzical — and maybe even a bit ironic — smile pasted on her face.
“I remember one time Julia’s mom came to Fortune to check up on her. ‘That’s my baby,’ Mom informed me. I acknowledged as much and then gently showed her to the elevator. ‘Your baby’ will be fine, I told her. And she was!
“Julia is spot on when she says we worked on a number of fun stories, like the exclusive piece on Ben Affleck’s and Matt Damon’s ‘Project Greenlight.’ While I was working on that story I met Dave Goldberg, the late husband of Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. When Dave tragically passed away earlier this year, I happened to mention the Greenlight story to WME co-CEO Patrick Whitesell and told him that Julia was the reporter on the piece with me. It reminded me that important and meaningful moments in your career can come at any time, and you build on that. You need to always be ready and open, and I think Julia always had those qualities.”
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