- Company
- Starfish Media Group
- Role
- Founder & CEO
- Est. Net Worth
- $5 Million (Est.)
- Stage
- Emerging
- Industry
- Retail
Soledad O'Brien
Founder & CEO at Starfish Media Group
About
Soledad O'Brien spent two decades as an anchor and correspondent at NBC, MSNBC, and CNN — covering Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake, the Arab Spring, and producing the acclaimed documentary series 'Black in America' and 'Latino in America.' In 2013, she left CNN to found Starfish Media Group, an independent production company creating documentaries, news specials, and digital content focused on underrepresented stories. Through Starfish and the PowHERful Foundation, which provides scholarships and mentoring to young women of color, O'Brien has built a media company where editorial independence and social impact are the business model.
Current Company
Starfish Media Group — Founder & CEO
From CNN Anchor to Independent Media Founder
Soledad O'Brien spent two decades at NBC, MSNBC, and CNN, becoming one of the most recognized journalists in American television. Her documentary series 'Black in America' and 'Latino in America' were among CNN's highest-rated specials, bringing stories about race, identity, and inequality to prime-time audiences. She covered Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake, and the Arab Spring with a reporting style that prioritized the voices of affected communities over institutional narratives.
In 2013, O'Brien left CNN to found Starfish Media Group, an independent production company that she built from scratch. The decision was a bet that independent media — freed from the constraints of cable news programming — could tell more impactful stories. Starfish has produced documentaries, news specials, and digital content for HBO, Al Jazeera, Smithsonian, and other outlets, consistently focusing on underrepresented communities and stories that mainstream media overlooks.
Media as Philanthropy
O'Brien founded the PowHERful Foundation, which provides scholarships, mentoring, and professional development to young women of color pursuing college degrees. The foundation reflects her belief that media visibility and educational opportunity are connected — that young women who see people who look like them succeeding in journalism, business, and public life are more likely to pursue ambitious careers themselves.
Starfish Media Group represents a growing model in journalism: the anchor-turned-entrepreneur who trades the reach of a major network for the editorial independence of ownership. O'Brien's company is smaller than CNN, but she controls what stories get told and how — a trade-off that an increasing number of experienced journalists are making as legacy media consolidates and shrinks its commitment to the kinds of in-depth, community-focused reporting that originally drew them to the profession.