#WCW: Polina Marinova

1. What's your story? What makes you unique? I moved with my family from Bulgaria in 2000 and thought the U.S. would be exactly like Disney World. It was not. I was an uncool 8-year-old who didn’t speak English, and it took me a while to make friends. I was painfully shy, so in high school I joined the newspaper staff because I liked writing. But I totally failed to realize that interviewing strangers would be such a big part of it. Ever since then, I fell in love with journalism and the ability to talk to all sorts of people from all walks of life. My path to where I am today wasn’t exactly a straight shot, but I was editor of University of Georgia’s newspaper, worked at CNN, USA Today, OZY and now I’m at Fortune Magazine.

2. What motivates you? Bringing value to everything I do. The reason I think journalism is so important is because it shapes history. I’ll never forget watching CNN on 9/11 and being very aware that I was seeing one of the most formative events of our generation unfold in real time. Every single one of those journalists, photographers, producers, etc., brought incredible value to their viewers through their work. And that’s exactly what motivates me. I get up every morning with the intent to get the most important journalism in front of our readers because it directly affects their life.

3. Who is a hero of yours? I’ve met some really accomplished people, but my parents will always be heroes in my eyes. I can’t imagine getting a master’s degree and then moving to another country to work crappy jobs night and day just to make ends meet. Eventually, they built their careers in chemical engineering and accounting, but those first few years were hard as hell. My parents have never stopped me from making my own mistakes my own way. They taught me that the point of life is to take all sorts of smart risks and that you will probably fail and that’s OK. You’ll eventually get up, brush it off and be able to appreciate your success.

4. What's your future plan? Your goals?

My ultimate goal is to figure out a way to re-invent the media industry so that all this amazing and incredible journalism, like the kind produced at Fortune every single day, is still alive and thriving in 5, 10 and 100 years. There’s a hunger for good journalism now more than ever, but we need to totally transform the way we produce, monetize and distribute news.

5. If you could give one piece of advice, what would it be? Don’t ever settle for anything – whether it’s job, a relationship or a lifestyle. This really hit me hard when I was graduating college because I thought my life was supposed to look a certain way or people would be disappointed in me. But the truth is that no one really cares if you have a job right out of college or if you’ve achieved X goal by Y year in Z city. When you realize that, you start living life the way you really want.

6. What is something you feel strongly about (a cause, belief, etc.)?

I’m a big advocate of building self-confidence. Coming from someone who really struggled with speaking up and being assertive, I can tell you that your level of confidence will shape who you are and what opportunities come your way. The people who I’ve met that are in powerful leadership positions all have 3 things in common – they have a firm handshake, they know they bring value to the conversation and they’re not afraid to go for what they want.

7. What's one of the coolest things you've ever done?

When I was editor of University of Georgia’s paper, my staff and I walked out in protest so that we could preserve editorial independence of the student newspaper we all loved. It made national headlines and was probably one of the scariest yet proudest moments of my life. And also this is really random, but I got to hug a dolphin once and it was ridiculously cool. When I retire, I’ll seriously consider becoming a dolphin trainer.

8. Anything we haven't asked that you'd like to talk about.

Just that I love what The Dean's List team is doing!