Gail Evans


Gail Hirschorn Evans is an American author, lecturer, and business executive. She is known for being the highest ranking female executive at Cable News Network and for her two books, Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman and She Wins, You Win.

Early life

Evans was born in 17 December 1941 and received a bachelor's degree from Bennington College. Her first job was in Office of the Special Counsel to the President during the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration.

CNN

Evans began working at CNN at its inception in 1980. By the time she retired in 2001, she was Executive Vice President of the CNN Newsgroup. During that time she was responsible for program and talent development at all of CNN’s domestic networks overseeing national and international talk shows and the Network Guest Bookings Department, which scheduled about 25,000 guests each year. She is responsible for developing many of CNN’s talk shows including Crossfire, Burden of Proof, Talkback Live, Capital Gang and Crier & Co.
She is credited with helping to discover and guide the careers of Katie Couric and Greta Van Susteren

Post-CNN Career

In 1999, Evans announced she would write a book about the lessons she had learned climbing to the top of the corporate ladder. She met with several publishers and it was estimated that she could get a $500,000 advance to write the book. Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman came out in September, 2001 and was an instant hit, reaching the top 10 on the New York Times bestseller list and being translated into 21 different languages. Following an appearance on Larry King Live, Evans' book spiked as high as #3 on Amazon.com's bestseller list.
In 2003, Evans wrote a follow-up, She Wins, You Win. Though not as much of a commercial success, the second book got strong reviews. Publishers Weekly described it as, "an aggressive but motivating handbook for women who are serious about career success."
Evans is also a corporate speaker and consultant on women in the workplace, giving lectures to AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, GE, Microsoft, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, KPMG, Cisco, IBM, Thompson Reuters, Deloitte, Intel, and Wal Mart.
She currently teaches organizational behavior as it relates to gender, race, and ethnicity at Georgia Tech.

Personal life

Evans was married to former CBS correspondent Bob Evans for more than 30 years before getting divorced in March 2000. They have 3 children and 7 grandchildren.