Nina Easton and Pattie Sellers honored in Nashville
WASHINGTON, Aug. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Nina Easton and Pattie Sellers, Co-Founders and Co-Presidents of Journey To Lead (JOURNEY), have been named 2026 Women of Power by the National Urban League.
“We’re deeply honored,” says Nina Easton, who chaired Fortune Most Powerful Women International before co-founding JOURNEY to equip extraordinary emerging leaders to reach the top. “Expanding opportunity, especially for next generations, is at the heart of this venerable 116-year-old organization. The NUL stands as a towering inspiration for our leadership work at JOURNEY.”
The National Urban League’s Women of Power Awards recognize women whose work has transformed communities across social justice, public service, business, education, public health, and the arts. This year’s honorees also included Racquel Oden, head of wealth, asset management and private banking at HSBC US; actress and comedian Kym Whitley; Debbi Howard, director of alumni relations at Tennessee State University; Michelle Merriweather, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle; and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of The 1619 Project.
The Women of Power luncheon, hosted by former CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller, took place July 30 in Nashville as part of the 2026 National Urban League conference. “Like the NUL, JOURNEY is all about building access to opportunity, economic mobility, and equity. There is no more critical time than now to get more of the best mission-driven women—women committed to paying it forward and lifting others—into top leadership,” Sellers told the audience of 1,500 attendees.
Sellers, a former Fortune Managing Editor, co-founded the Most Powerful Women franchise 30 years ago, when there was one female Fortune 500 CEO. “Today about 10% of Fortune 500 companies are led by women,” she says “This progress is wonderful and terrible. Nina Easton and I will never stop working hard on this because we have a long way to go.”
Easton and Sellers founded JOURNEY in 2021 on the belief that access, connections, and hands-on coaching are essential to getting more women into top decision-making roles. JOURNEY now includes 200+ leaders working to scale women’s leadership and global impact in critical areas including tech/AI, healthcare, climate, education, and global security.
ABOUT JOURNEY
Journey To Lead (JOURNEY) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit leadership organization that equips exceptional women leaders to scale their skills, businesses, capital, and impact. With a mission to get more women to the top of the private sector, JOURNEY is more than a Fellowship: a lifelong community committed to scaling leaders who are reshaping the future.
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SOURCE Journey To Lead
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