hurdling with cate sevilla: author + editor-in-chief of huffpost
on the importance of asking the bigger questions when joining a startup, the realities of navigating a big job alongside parenthood and what it’s like to be commissioned by hillary clinton.
Cate Sevilla is an author and the Editor-in-Chief of HuffPost UK. Originally from California, Cate has lived in the UK for 17 years and now has a two year old toddler. She managed to get Taylor Swift tickets last month, which is understandably now part of her personality.
Over her incredibly impressive career in digital publishing, which she describes as ‘squiggly or batshit, depending on how you look at it’, Cate has held titles including Head of Editorial at Google Arts & Culture and the founding Managing Editor at BuzzFeed UK. She has also written for publications like Stylist, Elle, The Big Issue, the i paper, The Independent, Grazia, Insider and many more, and has worked as an editorial consultant for brands like Refinery29 UK, Dove and Change Inc from VICE Media. Cate has previously hosted a podcast and worked in radio, too. Her first book, How To Work Without Losing Your Mind, was published in January 2021 and is an essential toolkit of guidance for anyone trying to find sanity in the world of work.
In 2018, she became Editor-in-Chief of The Pool, an online women’s magazine co-founded by Lauren Laverne and former Cosmopolitan editor Sam Baker in 2015. The magazine was home to many prominent and budding female writers who have since gone on to have successful writing careers, and was well-loved for its innovative way of communicating with women, along with a fearlessness of tackling serious issues. But four years later, it plunged into financial troubles that left many staff and freelancers left unpaid for months, eventually folding and closing in February 2019.
When Cate joined as the new Editor-in-Chief, she had no idea of any of the chaos and uncertainty she was about to dive into – eventually losing her dream job in a horrendous, public way.
Here, Cate tells me about the importance of asking the bigger questions when joining a startup, the realities of navigating a huge job alongside parenthood and what it’s like to be commissioned by Hillary Clinton.
Q: When you were younger, what did you want to be when you ‘grew up’?
A journalist. I watched The New Adventures of Superman and immediately knew I wanted to be Lois Lane (I can neither confirm or deny whether or not my crush on Clark Kent had anything to do with this). I’d also always been obsessed with audacious women writers and characters, whether it was Nellie Bly, Laura Ingalls Wilder or Jo March.
Q: Tell us about your first job.
My first job was at an ice cream shop called Coldstone. I had to sing for tips, constantly smelled like spoilt milk and burnt waffle cones and I got RSI from scooping the ice cream.
Q: Tell us about your worst ever job.
I was a hostess at pizza restaurant and lasted about two weeks. It was so boring and everyone was weird and I didn’t have a car which made the whole ‘getting to and from work’ quite complicated.
As an adult, I’ve been in some rather weird working situations, I wrote about quite a few pretty openly in my book (How To Work Without Losing Your Mind), but mainly it’s been managers who have been completely terrible to work for, rather than it being the role itself or even the company. The pizza job, however, was objectively crap.
Q: Tell us about how you became the Editor of HuffPost UK? What career moves, experiences and hurdles did you have to jump to get to where you are today?
This role at HuffPost was pretty unexpected, to be honest. I was on maternity leave and expected to stay freelance and write another book and continue on with my podcast. But my now manager, James Martin, was very persistent in pursuing me for this role. I owe him a lot. I was always a big fan of HuffPost and never imagined I’d be editor there, especially considering I applied for a job there in like 2013 and didn’t get it.
I’m technically a boomerang hire. I was part of the original team at BuzzFeed when it launched in the UK (I think I was hire number 7) and then of course BuzzFeed acquired HuffPost in 2021. It’s been interesting to work at a company nearly a decade after starting there the first time.
I firmly believe that every interview, rejection, role and project leads to the next – you always learn something from every job and experience, even if it felt 100% terrible at the time. Learning about my relationship with my career and work when I was at Google was so important to my personal and professional development, and when The Pool collapsed when I was editor there, it taught me a lot about managing in a crisis. I know I’ve grown a lot from those experiences, and they absolutely inform how I manage my team and work at HuffPost now.
Q: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made at work? What happened? What did you do? And what did you learn from it?
Well, there’s been the classic ‘accidentally throwing a venti Americano over a woman’s white dress’ when I worked at Starbucks kind of mistakes in the past, but to be honest I don’t really feel like I’ve made ‘mistakes’ at work. The biggest fuck-ups I’ve had have been just not listening to my gut, agreeing to things I shouldn’t and not feeling empowered enough to ask bigger questions. I’ve put up with too much shit in my career, so while that’s not specifically a mistake, it’s definitely something I wish I had done differently, sooner.
Q: Is there anything else you wish you’d done differently over your career?
I would’ve asked for help more. I would’ve understood when friendships or connections weren’t actually that. And I would’ve stood up for myself more and cared less about arbitrary rules.
Q: You became the editor of The Pool (my absolute favourite publication of all time) at a time where, unknown to you or anyone, it was about to take a terrible plunge. Can you tell us about how you came to take this role, how things unfolded and how you dealt with the experience?
I happened to be looking to leave Google at the time The Pool were looking for a new editor, which I was absolutely thrilled about. I really thought this was my ultimate dream job and I finally felt like I had found my place in the industry.
I had no idea about the reality of the financial situation of the business. I remember after everything happened, I got asked in an interview with the BBC if I thought I had been ‘naive’ in joining the business without any greater knowledge of the finances. At the time, I didn’t know what I didn’t know – after going through this process, I will never again join a start-up or any business without asking bigger questions or fully knowing the risk. There’s nothing wrong with risk – I think in digital media there’s always a big risk factor – but with The Pool, I really didn’t have a grasp of just how risky the situation I had joined was.
Basically, four months after I joined, the business’ new owner just stopped paying people – staff, freelancers, the cleaning service for the office, literally everyone, including some really high profile columnists and authors. It blew up on social media, it was in the news, the papers – even Private Eye. It was a complete fucking mess and I’d just had dental surgery on the same day it all properly kicked off, which was a nice touch.
Upon reflection, I can see all the giant red flags that were there from the beginning, but until you know what those warning signals are, you can easily overlook them! For example, if you’re offered a job but the guy who needs to issue your contract and sign off your salary isn’t getting back to you because he’s partying in Ibiza for 2 weeks and not answering his phone... maybe keep looking for a new job!
I was already pretty broken from my experience of working at Google, so when things at The Pool exploded, I was already primed for dealing with a professional and personal crisis – but it was still absolutely fucking awful. And embarrassing. Even though it wasn’t my fault, it was still really embarrassing.
But, of course, the positive was that I was really proud of how I navigated that situation honestly and transparently, and (I think?) calmly and I met some really kind and helpful people in the midst of that shitshow. A huge learning experience across the board.
Q: You wrote the excellent ‘How To Work Without Losing Your Mind’, which has become a career guide for so many. What inspired you to write the book, and what’s the one thing you wished people would take away from it?
When I was having a really awful time in my job at Google, I felt so alone and like there was something wrong with me for not being able to make (an insane, unfair, ridiculous) situation work. I had actually been through some pretty ridiculous situations (I briefly worked for ex-Top Gear presenters, soooo) and after Google and then The Pool I had so many thoughts, and I just really wanted to write a book that was not for aspiring Girl Bosses or tech bro entrepreneurs. I wanted to write a career guide that was for your average worker who felt alone, stressed, and is crying in the loos feeling absolutely lost.
The one thing I would want people to take away from the book is for them to have a better, healthier perspective on their own relationship with work and their career.
Q: What’s the piece of journalism you’re the most proud of writing or publishing?
Oh I was thrilled to finally get my first story in print after like 12 years of writing online! Hillary and Chelsea Clinton were guest editors for Stylist Magazine and they had the idea for a story about going on a news diet (aka news aversion) – and I was commissioned to write that story. There’s a video of them discussing it and I was absolutely thrilled.
Q: Alongside your incredibly impressive and no doubt demanding role as editor-in-chief of HuffPost UK, you’re also a mother to a toddler! How did taking on this role challenge you personally, what new challenges has it brought to your career?
So, my kid is in nursery five days a week, and has been since he was 10 months old. He absolutely bloody loves it and it’s what’s best for our family, and for me and my mental wellbeing. I love working, he loves nursery, it’s great.
HOWEVER, I still get microaggressions from random people about working five days a week all of the time – even down to the local classes that are available for kids under 4 mainly scheduled mid-week, the message being that mums should be home with their babies before they go to school. Or that if you work, you should only want to do it part-time.
My job has been extremely flexible and empathetic – they treat me like an adult, I make my own schedule, I get my job done. The flexibility flows both ways.
Has it been easy though? Absolutely fucking not, and I have a level of privilege that a lot of parents do not – my husband takes most of the nursery drop-offs/pick-ups in the week and I have a flexible, understanding boss. And yet, figuring out the logistics of how we make it work every week is mind-boggling.
I say this not to scare anyone who wants to have kids, but I think it’s important that we are not hiding how difficult it can be and making it look all minimalist and simple and beige on Instagram. Being a mum has unlocked a dimension and a way of life that was completely invisible to me before I was a parent – it’s wild in every sense of the word. Is it for everyone? God no. So perhaps we should stop acting as if it’s simple, easy or even affordable to try and have it all. It’s bloody hard and is a big decision! I love my son and our family unit, but I could never pretend like ‘oh gosh, everyone should do this!’
Q: Anything to get off your chest?
I would just like to say that despite being an editor and author, please know I have also been rejected countless times. I hear no (or nothing at all) back quite a lot, even in just the week alone! If you are feeling ‘other’ – I see you, I hear you. I am intrinsically different in so many ways to my peers and people who share the same job title as me at other publications, and other authors. My current manager says to me a lot, ‘play to your strengths’. Pay attention to the people and the places who give you a sense of belonging and embrace the ways you are different without expecting you to be the fucking same as everyone else. There is a difference between being tolerated and being accepted and embraced.
QUICKFIRE
Q: One work-related object you can’t live without?
Knomo backpacks. They’re 4 lyfe.
Q: Best advice you’ve ever been given?
‘They change their tampon just like everyone else does’. My aunt said this to me when I started to freak out about meeting someone I really looked up to for lunch. Basically, people are just people. Calm down.
Q: Worst advice you’ve ever been given?
Any time anyone has told me to try to act a certain way at work or to talk a certain way it has never worked. I have to be me.
Q: Your dream person to interview?
Greta Gerwig, Meghan Rapinoe, Kacey Musgraves or Ed Sheeran.
Q: The person you admire the most?
Greta Gerwig (I’m from Sacramento, what can I say).
Q: Ever faked being sick to get off work?
No, but I will blame physical illness instead of being honest about needing a mental health day.
Q: Any last words?
Support the trans community and please vote in the next election!