Sharon Patrick
Brand Builder
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| Patrick Photo by Susan Salinger |
Sharon L. Patrick draws a bright line between the financials of a business and its architecture — its economics and business model. It’s the latter that tells her what makes the financials tick and drives her particular interest in media ventures.
“The high fixed costs inherent in media lead to economies of scale and leveraging models,” observes Patrick, who served as president and COO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for six years before she was appointed CEO in June. “If you can harness these economics, you can create very sturdy and profitable businesses even for narrow niche categories.” Patrick has done just that since earning her MBA. After thirteen years at McKinsey followed by, as president, a turnaround of Cablevision’s Rainbow Programming, in 1993 Patrick founded her own company to create and own high-quality media businesses. One of her clients, Martha Stewart, had started a magazine and was looking to expand her reach. The two joined forces as partners to build MSO, the well-known “omnimedia” empire for the home that reported revenues of $296 million last year — on $1.5 billion in retail sales, including publishing, television, merchandising, and Internet businesses.
Patrick acknowledges the challenges of the last sixteen months due to the federal investigation and indictment of Stewart for a personal stock sale unrelated to MSO. However, she remains upbeat. “The strength of our content and business model — and the brand labels, infrastructure, and other assets they’ve built — enables us to leverage the good times and manage through the not-so-good times.”
— SY
