Samantha Critchell: Meet Me In The Middle

Samantha Critchell and I met on our first day at Syracuse University, two of a few dozen underclassmen somehow placed an old apartment building hastily converted for that year’s overflow of Gen Xers.

Through career changes and moves, movie premieres and promotions, Sam’s been a constant. Little wonder, then, as I settle into my new home, career and life, I felt deeply compelled to check in with my remarkably accomplished, deeply centered friend.

Sam began her career at WBUG-FM in Amsterdam, New York, then parlayed her breaking news experience there to a long tenure at The Associated Press. Nearly two decades later, she pivoted from the helm of AP’s fashion coverage to a run at brand name fashion communications at Ralph Loren and PVH. Sam now leads Editorial & Social at American Express.

And that very centeredness, it ends up, is key to those accomplishments.

“A lot of people who work in the media are looking to be on one side or the other,” she explains. “I am really happy to be your average suburban 50-year-old woman.”

Sam was born in New York City to second generation garment manufacturers, and raised in Westport, Connecticut. Strongly opinionated parents and the financial roller coaster of entrepreneurism, she’s says, led her to crave stability and balance – attributes that informed her now three decades in journalism.

“A journalist has to be in the middle,” she says. “I never walked out of an interview [thinking] ‘I loved them’ or ‘I hated them.’ I could listen, digest and do a story because I could [be] objective. It’s what made me good at what I did. And still does.”

“A lot of people who work in the media are looking to be on one side or the other,” she explains. “I am really happy to be your average suburban 50-year-old woman.”