Women In Leadership Roles / Politics / Career
Maria Shriver is the mother of four, a Peabody and Emmy-winning journalist and producer, a six-time
New York Times best-selling author, and an NBC News Special Anchor reporting on the shifting roles,
emerging power and evolving needs of women in modern life. Shriver served as California’s First Lady
from 2003 to 2010.
Shriver’s work is driven by her belief that all of us have the ability to be what she calls Architects of
Change — people who see a problem in their own life or the community around them, then step out of
their comfort zone and do what it takes to create the solution. Her website features the life stories and
life lessons of Architects of Change to inspire people to use their own ideas, influence and initiative to
make an impact on our world.
With a career in journalism spanning more than two decades, Maria Shriver was a network news
correspondent and anchor for CBS and NBC. She took a leave of absence from network news in 2004
when she became First Lady of California, but she continued to train her journalist’s eye on the
transformative societal trends impacting women as breadwinners, parents, caregivers and consumers.
In 2009, she published the “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything,” which
revealed that women, for the first time in our nation’s history, represented half of all U.S. workers.
The report examined how that new reality is changing everything about how we live and work today.
In 2010, she published “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s,” which was the
largest study ever conducted to look at the significant impact of Alzheimer’s disease on women who,
the study found, make up the majority of patients and caregivers.
Both Shriver Reports ignited national conversations about the changing status of women that continue
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