Bethesda resident Carolyn Bruna is normally the one asking the questions — she has interviewed countless female leaders on her television show “It’s a Woman’s World.” Now the scripts are flipped.
In 2005, Bruna began airing her show on Montgomery Municipal Cable TV in Montgomery County to showcase women’s successes as a way to inspire other women and girls as well as show the wide variety of careers to choose from.
Bruna, who has interviewed guests in business, entrepreneurship, science, culture, fine arts, culinary arts, religion, activism, volunteerism, government and the nonprofit sector, says she believes in the importance of giving others a voice.
“I’m pretty focused on my cause of bringing women’s voices to the world,” Bruna says. “My motto is by Ralph Washington Sockman, ‘What makes greatness is starting something that lives after you.’”
Success requires good effort, something Bruna hopes to convey through the questions she asks her guests.
“You can be anything you want to be, but you do have to work for it. Here are women who have gone above and beyond; they’ve succeeded, and you can use them as models for you to succeed in your life,” Bruna says.
The first question she asks her guests is “How did you get into this career?” Bruna says not enough people today recognize the value of mentorship.
“I think young women today don’t realize they can go out and ask somebody to be their mentor,” Bruna says. “One of the ways is by interviewing women who are in a career that you admire or want to go into and ask them the questions.”
One 15-minute “informational interview” is all it takes to learn more about a career of interest, Bruna says.
She didn’t always know she wanted to go into television. Bruna started out studying speech and drama at Catholic University of America, then earned her master’s in reading diagnosis and remediation from the University of Maryland. She worked as a reading specialist before beginning at the MMCTV studio.
When Bruna was asked one day to fill in for another TV host at the studio, then to be on a show, she gladly jumped at the opportunity.
One of her proudest moments was when she interviewed Cynthia Schneider, former ambassador of the United States to the Netherlands, whom she was able to meet through a friend.
“She’s absolutely fascinating, so I’m very proud of interviewing her,” Bruna says.
Bruna says her guests are from all backgrounds and walks of life.
“They’re all so diverse,” Bruna says. “I think it’s all compounded in the variety of women, in the variety of businesses.
The diversity is just there. If you’re interviewing women from all walks of life today, you have a diversity of guests.”
Almost two decades later, Bruna is going strong. She is scheduled to interview Mitra Lore, an Iranian activist and steel sculpture artist who founded a grassroots organization for peace and human rights in the Middle East.
“I still love it; it’s still one of my main passions in life,” Bruna says of “It’s a Woman’s World.”
