Self-made women are journalist Clare O’Connor’s expertise. The New York-based Bermudian, 33, is a staff writer at Forbes, where her focus is women entrepreneurs, workplace equality and affirming popular hashtag #ladybosses.

The former Mid-Ocean News reporter told Lifestyle about the highs and lows of her growing career.

What was your earliest ambition?

I’ve known I was going to write since I was very small, at the Bermuda High School for Girls. As soon as I could write full sentences I was making little storybooks on construction paper, with staples for binding.

I looked at a few recently (my mother sweetly kept many) and had to laugh at how liberally I “borrowed” from my favourite childhood author, Enid Blyton.

What about your parents?

My parents encouraged me to pursue journalism, which isn’t exactly known to be a stable or lucrative career path, so I’m grateful for their confidence in me.

They also kept a house full of books, made reading a priority and prized education above all else. (My dad also foisted issues of The New Yorker and the Sunday New York Times on me when he was done with them. I owe him one.)

What are you passionate about?

I’m interested in social justice, feminism, and equality for women, LGBT people, and other marginalised groups.

I recently started volunteering through the National Organisation for Women as an escort at an abortion clinic in Queens. It’s staggering that in 2016 in New York City a woman should have to fear being accosted and verbally abused by anti-choice zealots simply for trying to access legal healthcare. It’s important these women have friendly faces to welcome them.

Were you a good student in school?

I did pretty well at BHS, then boarded at Sherborne School for Girls in England at 13. I did a BA in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania, then later an MSc in journalism at Columbia University.

I was lucky that the subjects I cared about, humanities, all came easily. I wish I had more of a natural aptitude for the sciences and am so glad that in the years since I left school, there’s been a concerted effort to encourage girls to pursue Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) careers.

What got you hooked on journalism?

I was always going to study English and journalism but was really done for as a sophomore in college. I was an editor at 34th Street, Penn’s alt-weekly arts and entertainment magazine. We had a degree of autonomy I haven’t had since. We screwed up often (thank God for in-house lawyers) but I fell in love with the reporting and editing process, the camaraderie of the newsroom and the thrill of seeing my work in print.

Did you have a clear career path?

I worked in PR right out of college because I thought it’d pay better than journalism. I lasted a year before I’d begged a job at a London publisher, writing about media and communications for a B2B magazine.

Being thrown on to a beat in an unfamiliar city and sector was the best training I could’ve had. I had to grow my own list of sources and contacts.

Once I’d decided to do a master’s degree, I did a year back home in Bermuda at The Royal Gazette, ostensibly to save money (yeah, in Bermuda!).

From Columbia onwards, it’s been pretty clear: an internship at CNN with Anderson Cooper’s nightly news show AC360, then a full-time role at Forbes upon graduation, first reporting on wealth and crunching numbers for our well-known rich lists, then covering retail and e-commerce, and now writing about women entrepreneurs and workplace equality.

On June 1, I will have been at Forbes for six years.

What has been a seminal moment in your career?

I hope I’m not old enough to have had THE seminal moment, but my first cover story for Forbes felt like a milestone at the time.

I profiled Sara Blakely, a woman who had sold fax machines door-to-door and worked as a costumed Goofy at Disney World before cutting the feet out of her pantyhose and inadvertently inventing Spanx, now a billion-dollar brand of shapewear and undergarments.

Since then I’ve written other cover stories about super-successful women, including media mogul Oprah Winfrey and actress-turned-entrepreneur Jessica Alba, but those wouldn’t have happened without Sara.

I’ve also reported some longform investigative pieces I’m proud of. I profiled a monk-turned-inventor of 5-Hour Energy who was fudging his philanthropic donations.

I spent some time in rural Wisconsin on the trail of a billionaire scion who also happened to be a child sex predator. And I wrote a long piece on an $8 billion feud between members of the family behind the Orkin pest control empire. It was tough not to insert more punny vermin references.

As a woman, do you feel there is more pressure on how you present yourself?

There is more pressure, period.

You write about women entrepreneurs and workplace equality at Forbes. How did this became your focus?

I lobbied my editor and Forbes’s head of product for the role. The business press can still feel like the preserve of middle-class, middle-aged white men. I wanted to tell the stories of entrepreneurial women, LGBT people and people of colour.

One of my first pieces after taking on this new beat was about a young black woman engineer who created a “blind” job-matching app aiming to take the bias out of hiring in the tech sector. It was shared more on social media than anything I’ve ever written.

Young people who aren’t white men are looking for role models in business and often come up empty. I want to do my part to address that.

Some have argued that the glass ceiling no longer exists. Can you speak to this?

I don’t know anyone credible who’s made that argument, unless you count Fox News and its right-wing anti-women ilk — and I certainly don’t.

We won’t be equal until we’re paid equally, or until paid parental leave is widespread. Maternity leave is still classified as a short-term disability for insurance purposes in many US companies. I mean, how deeply offensive and telling is that!

How does a person progress in your field?

Always make three more phone calls than you think you need on any story. Be sceptical — especially when dealing with a PR or other gatekeeper. They’re paid handsomely to throw you off the scent.

And don’t take your editors’ feedback personally. They’ve been at this longer and they’re probably right.

Did/do you have a mentor?

There are women editors at Forbes who have always had my back. I’m trying to return the favour and look out for younger women reporters. If you’re a woman with some experience and a little time, be a mentor. No one will ever advocate for you like another woman. I’m sure of that.

What are your long-term goals?

I’d like to write more long-form nonfiction. I hope I’ll get a chance to write a book at some point soon.

What changes have you witnessed in your industry?

Media in 2016 is so much about the ways readers consume news, which is more and more on their phones or via video. Forbes is adapting. Check out Forbes.com from your mobile phone and you’ll be impressed! The job of reporting itself doesn’t really change. We’re just expected to do more of it, and more quickly.