Katie Hill resigned from Congress, but not from politics

This is the web version of The Broadsheet, a daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Rent the Runway ditches retail, W Magazine has a new group of investors, and Katie Hill isn’t leaving politics behind. Go get your Monday.

– Down but not out. It’s nearly impossible to rattle Katie Hill.

The former congresswoman has faced leaked, nonconsensual nude photos; attacks by, she says, her estranged husband and GOP operatives (her husband has denied any involvement); and a traumatic resignation from her hard-fought seat in Congress. If you ask her a question now, she’ll answer it.

That includes this one: would she ever seek elected office again? “Never say no,” she told me.

I spoke to Hill earlier this month about her new book, She Will Rise: Becoming a Warrior in the Battle for True Equality. In the book, Hill addresses the sequence of events that led her to give up her congressional seat and the personal and professional aftermath of that decision. Parts of it are an intense read, covering abuse, depression, family secrets, and trauma.

But Hill is also looking ahead—writing to show girls and women considering running for office one day that even the “worst-case scenario” she experienced isn’t a life-ruiner. “By surviving, making it out of it, raising the question—could I have politically survived if I’d stayed in?—that might make young people feel like this isn’t something that would be career-ending to them,” she told me.

Hill also explains exactly what is so traumatic about cyber exploitation (“revenge porn,” she says, is a misnomer) and what domestic abuse can look like when it doesn’t involve physical violence.

For more on Hill’s experience and her new book, read our Q+A here. Also keep an eye out for Hill’s influence on the 2020 cycle with her new PAC, HER Time. Even if she doesn’t run for office again, Hill doesn’t plan to leave politics entirely. “Change is too important to step out of the arena,” she says.

Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Tucker tells all. Therese Tucker is a pioneer in tech. In 2001, Tucker founded the financial software company BlackLine; in 2016, she took the company public. She's one of very few women to run public companies in the tech industry—let alone ones they founded. In this piece, Tucker tells Coins2Day's Maria Aspan why she's stepping down as CEO in January. Coins2Day

- Defining 'different.' Urban Zen CEO Helen Aboah writes for Coins2Day about what makes her "different"—a question she is often asked—as a Black female CEO. "My position would not be as notable if I were not Black," Aboah writes. But the differences she thinks of are about the beliefs she held about herself that got her to the top of corporate America. Coins2Day

- Retail drop-off. Rent the Runway will close all five of its retail stores—for good. The clothing rental service run by CEO Jennifer Hyman will instead pivot to expanding its network of drop-off boxes, rather than reopening the retail locations it operated before the coronavirus pandemic. CNBC

- Brand Ne W. W Magazine will partner with Bustle Digital Group to be relaunched as W Media. Editor-in-chief Sara Moonves (daughter of Les Moonves) with Karlie Kloss assembled a group of investors including model Kaia Gerber, Forerunner Ventures partner Kirsten Green, and Peloton SVP Dara Treseder. New York Times

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Cushman & Wakefield added EB5 Capital founder and CEO Angelique Brunner to its board of directors.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

- Calling on Yellen. Former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen is advising the Biden-Harris ticket, Bloomberg reports. Yellen joins an economic briefing team that includes Michigan State University professor Lisa Cook and Heather Boushey, a longtime Biden adviser. Bloomberg

- State of the Dolly-verse. There's an entire ecosystem of employees who depend on the Dolly Parton empire for their income—not just her music and personal teams, but workers at her theme park, Dollywood. Parton, with her "schedule resembling that of a tech CEO," is steering her businesses through the pandemic—and preparing her teams for, one day, a world without her. Billboard

- Flying forward. In a Coins2Day op-ed, Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and cochair of the Biden-Sanders unity task force on the economy, argues in favor of continuing enhanced unemployment benefits. Coins2Day