Isha Sesay’s Instagram bio describes her as a “proud mother,” a “CEO” and an “award-winning journalist” in that order. But Sesay says many people still primarily identify her as “the girl from CNN.”
Sesay was a prominent anchor at the network’s international channel, spending more than 13 years there. During her time at CNN, she interviewed world leaders, celebrities and newsmakers, including former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former US first lady Michelle Obama, actor Matt Damon and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai. She left the network in 2018 without publicly explaining why, sparking years of speculation.
“People still stop me in the streets … when I’m going through airports or when I’m walking down the street in LA and say, ‘Oh my God, you’re the girl from CNN,’” she told CNN’s Larry Madowo in an interview in New York in early April for the network’s African Voices show. She added that she “felt incredibly proud” when those moments happened.
Sesay has never publicly said why she walked away from CNN, that is until now. She told Madowo, “I’ll tell it for the first time on camera. People always ask me, ‘Why did you leave CNN?’ … It’s become a thing that people ask at parties… I left because my mom had the stroke. And I was in a position where effectively, business decisions were being made that just did not align with my responsibilities to care for her. So I made the decision to walk away.
