Thursday, August 6, 2026

Introducing Fortune Daily, a new type of business show

Fortune just premiered a new daily news show, airing every weekeday afternoon. The host is none other than Fortune Most Powerful Women editorial director Ellie Austin. Ellie is here today to tell us more about it.

Fortune's Ellie Austin with reporter Phil Wahba on the set of the new show Fortune Daily.

Fortune

We are all bombarded by information at every turn. By 3 p.m. most days, my brain is fried by the number of headlines, images and videos that I’ve forced it to consume since waking up. It’s exhausting, yes, but it also makes knowing which information to pay attention to—and trust—a minefield.

Into this environment, Fortune is launching Fortune Daily, a premium, daily news show. And I’m its host. “What?” I hear you cry. “The last thing anyone needs is yet another vodcast!” We know that, which is why we’re doing something different. Monday to Thursday every week, I’ll sit down with my award-winning colleagues across Fortune’s newsroom to discuss their coverage of the biggest business stories. I’ll also welcome external guests, in the form of CEOs, thinkers, and the buzziest founders, for exclusive interviews.

But here’s where Fortune Daily is different from other shows out there: we’re not just reading the headlines; we’re exploring what they mean for you. How do they impact your job, your finances, and the way you make decisions across all areas of your life? And we’re doing all this from our beautiful, cozy set, situated at Fortune’s Manhattan’s HQ.

Alongside Fortune Daily, I’m still overseeing the Most Powerful Women Summit and I’ll be discussing many of the themes and women covered in this newsletter in the show. On Tuesday’s episode, for example, I chatted with my colleague Emily Forlini, senior AI reporter, about her exclusive interview with Fidji Simo, which covered Simo’s decision to step back from her OpenAI exec role to focus on her health. We go beyond the piece, breaking down whether Simo’s high-profile transparency about her experience with POTS could smash taboos around leaders disclosing health issues. Yesterday, Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell took me behind the scenes of her Titans and Disruptors interview with Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman. In today’s episode, I’ll speak with Fortune‘s Ruth Umoh about the minefield that is a CEO succession race in 2026.

The show will be informative, fast-paced, and packed full of big personalities. Above all, I want it to be a dialogue with you, our audience. When you watch (on YouTube) or listen (on Apple or Spotify’s podcast platforms), please comment telling us what you want us to cover. You also can email me at ellie.austin@fortune.com. Let me know who you want us to interview, and which topics from this newsletter you want us to delve into deeper.

This show is for you and I want to make sure that we’re bringing you the reporting, guests, and insights that are most valuable for your life and work.

Episodes of Fortune Daily go live every afternoon ET.

Ellie Austin
ellie.austin@fortune.com

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Emma Hinchliffe. Subscribe here.

Read and share today’s online edition here.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

Dr. Erica Schwartz is the new director of the CDC. She's a former deputy surgeon general and retired US Coast Guard officer, now the first Black woman to serve as CDC director—filling a role that was empty for a year. CNN reports she "has a lengthy record of guiding vaccination programs and crises responses for the government," helping her get confirmed amid lawmakers' concerns.

The Lindsay Clancy case. The Massachusetts case is bringing even more attention to the issues of postpartum depression and psychosis. Yesterday, the family's former nanny testified that the mom who strangled her three children was a "wonderful mom who loved her kids." That aligns with Clancy's defense, which is arguing she was a loving mother who was overpowered by postpartum psychosis.

Kansas voters just rejected another way of restricting abortion rights. A ballot measure would have made members of the state’s Supreme Court electable by popular vote. Conservatives put forward the proposal in response to the state's Supreme Court's 2019 decision determining that the state constitution guaranteed the right to abortion, and the failure of subsequent efforts to override that decision.

What Heidi O'Neill is walking into. The incoming Lululemon CEO will inherit a company that is "at war with itself," this Bloomberg piece argues. That has to do with repeated stumbles—"a rash of unforced errors just as a swarm of competitors rushed in"—and new, formalized influence of opinionated founder Chip Wilson.