It’s hard to believe that Rani Robinson was once a shy college girl.
In order to graduate with her bachelor’s degree in communications from Marymount University she first needed to complete an internship. Her eyes on National Geographic, she emailed them only to receive zero response. Undeterred, Rani shared her passion for working in the travel space with her dad. At the time her father, Leonard H. Robinson, Jr., had a partnership with Discovery Communications, Inc. (parent company for Discovery Channel and TLC) via a nonprofit called The Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa. He invited Rani to a Discovery Communications reception so she could network, but the thought terrified her.
“I was shy and didn’t know much about networking,” Rani says. “But I quickly learned of its power. I met someone who introduced me to someone else, and then someone else, who then introduced me to then-president of Discovery, Judith McHale.”
Judith was impressed by Rani and invited her to join Discovery’s internship program in June 2002. Starting as a photo intern, Rani worked hard to make her work indispensable to her colleagues. Her internship turned into a full-time job, and now 13 years later, Rani still works for the Travel Channel (this time under parent company Scripps Networks Interactive; parent company of HGTV and Food Network) as the director of digital.
Rani is proof childhood dreams can come true, even if in a slightly different form than first imagined. And that shy girl? She’s long gone, and Rani is glad and now espouses the importance of self-confidence and speaking up to her employees.