Isha Sesay’s Instagram bio describes her as a “proud mother,” a “CEO” and an “award-winning journalist” in that order. But Sesay says many individuals nonetheless primarily establish her as “the girl from NCS.”
Sesay was a outstanding anchor on the community’s worldwide channel, spending greater than 13 years there. During her time at NCS, she interviewed world leaders, celebrities and newsmakers, together with former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former US first girl Michelle Obama, actor Matt Damon and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai. She left the community in 2018 with out publicly explaining why, sparking years of hypothesis.
“People still stop me in the streets … when I’m going through airports or when I’m walking down the street in LA and say, ‘Oh my God, you’re the girl from NCS,’” she instructed NCS’s Larry Madowo in an interview in New York in early April for the community’s African Voices present. She added that she “felt incredibly proud” when these moments occurred.
Sesay has by no means publicly stated why she walked away from NCS, that’s till now. She instructed Madowo, “I’ll inform it for the primary time on digital camera. People at all times ask me, ‘Why did you leave NCS?’ … It’s turn into a factor that folks ask at events… I left as a result of my mother had the stroke. And I used to be ready the place successfully, enterprise selections had been being made that simply didn’t align with my duties to take care of her. So I made the choice to stroll away.
“I have no hard feelings for anyone in that building. I have tremendous love and respect for the decision makers at the time. It’s just that at some point you’ve got to put yourself first … and that’s why I left … no big scandal.”
In December 2016, Sesay’s mom, Dr. Kadi Sesay, a Sierra Leonean politician and girls’s rights champion, suffered a catastrophic stroke which left her in a coma. In June 2025, she died. Sesay stated that the stroke left her mom in a “semi-vegetative state,” and she spent 9 years taking good care of her.
“I’m still navigating the loss of my mother … it’s sad on so many levels for a woman of her stature and heart and dynamism to have been laid low by a stroke that left her effectively immobile and in a bad way … she was struck down just when she was about to take her next biggest step, being on the ticket as Sierra Leone’s potential vice president, the first woman to do so. So it’s still a difficult time,” she stated.
After her mom’s stroke, Sesay says she realized the “importance of bonds and of having offspring.” She had at all times needed to be a mom, however stated her then high-profile job made her put it on the backburner.
“I got to NCS and it just became about the work. Just became about the next assignment, the next breaking news moment, the next convention to cover, the next award show, red carpet to be on, and you just continue to put off your life in service of these brands, and it’s an incredible opportunity to have had … but it was when my mom took ill and sort of like mortality and the finality of life smacks you in the face that you think, what is it all for?” she stated.
Sesay determined to turn into a single mom in her 40s. “I was like, give me that website,” she stated, referring to a sperm donation web site. “Let me find a donor, let me do this on my own,” she stated.
In January 2023 after two failed in vitro fertilization (IVF) makes an attempt, Sesay introduced she was pregnant on the age of 46, and welcomed a daughter, Naimah Yasmine Kadi Sesay, the next month.
Some individuals on social media had been supportive and congratulatory; others criticized her determination.
“I’m amazed by the depth of feeling people have about this decision, people who don’t know me, people who will never meet me. And it’s really polarizing for some people and really difficult for some people that I would choose to have a baby on my own. And the funny thing is, some people take it as sort of like, I did it as an affront or a rejection of men. It’s not a rejection of anyone; it is an embrace of my own autonomy,” she stated.
“I stand as a champion to say to women, choose your own journey,” she added. “The notion that people would say to me, be in a bad marriage, be in a bad couple, so that you would have a child, seems ridiculous to me in this age of science and progress … it’s not for everyone and I’m not evangelizing it. I’m just saying it worked for me.”
Now a mom to a toddler, Sesay is juggling that position together with her job as CEO of Areya Media, previously OkayMedia, the mother or father firm of OkayAfrica and Okayplayer. The firm is a digital media platform specializing in uplifting international Black tradition and the African diaspora. Okayplayer was based by musician Questlove and writer Angela Nissel in 1999. Media entrepreneur Vanessa Wruble and Ginny Suss launched its sister website OkayAfrica in 2010.
Sesay is the primary girl to maintain a CEO place within the group’s historical past and since taking on in March 2021, she rebranded the corporate.
“When I came here, these were just digital platforms that essentially did some live programming and did editorial and had socials,” she stated. “Our socials have grown. I’ve built a newsletter division. I’ve built a studio division. We now do podcasts. We are doing large activations now.”
Live activations are interactive occasions designed to rejoice diaspora tradition and strengthen human connection to the model. The firm has hosted a sequence of them in New York and Miami.
“I’d like to think that you can see the results of what I’ve done in five years and the brands feel … more joyful than ever,” she defined.
One of the corporate’s podcasts, “The Almanac of Rap,” gained a webby in 2023 for finest music podcast and once more in 2025 for experimental and innovation.
“My love for news continues and endures, but sitting where I sit now, as CEO of Areya… this is a good place,” she stated.
Sesay says she nonetheless consumes information each day and is visibly dissatisfied by how the African continent is roofed. She stated, “I think there’s still these deep-seated biases where people are happy to talk about Africa rising in terms of culture and music and fashion, and we’re still happy to celebrate our artistry, but I still don’t think enough nuance is brought to telling the stories of the continent.”
She provides the examples of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has seen battle and displacement, and Sudan, the place years of violence have caused what the World Health Organization has referred to as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” “Would you know?” requested Sesay.
She added, “I think news networks feel that with the advent of creators now online and telling these stories, maybe they have a pass.”
While Sesay appreciates social media creators — notably throughout conflicts or crises when platforms assist share data — she worries that their affect could in the end be extra dangerous than useful. She provides that it’s regarding how many individuals now log on after merely utilizing instruments like Google or ChatGPT, with out clarifying that they’re expressing private opinions, and as a substitute current their views as in the event that they had been goal, unbiased reporting.
According to Gallup, a world analytics agency recognized for its public opinion polling, in 2025 belief in media reached a brand new low of 28% within the US, down from 31% the 12 months earlier than. Despite that, Sesay says she remains to be optimistic about journalism.
“The need for the truth, the need for facts, the need for credible reporting will survive. It will have to continue to evolve to meet people where they are … We need the news. We need to know what’s happening. We don’t live in a bubble, we’re more integrated and globalized than ever before, so I don’t worry about journalism.”
At 50, Sesay — additionally a philanthropist and a UN Goodwill ambassador — has already made a reputation for herself in journalism. And at Areya Media she hopes to proceed lending her voice to the trade. When speaking about her legacy, Sesay says she hopes the world remembers her as somebody who “supported, encouraged and gave opportunity to others … that I made a difference.”
Sesay has already left a long-lasting mark on a brand new era of African broadcasters and reporters like Madowo, who stated he grew to become a journalist “partly because I saw her doing it.”