In the final episode of a four-part special series on leadership, HBR Editor in Chief Adi Ignatius and Harvard Business School professor and historian Nancy Koehn trace Winfrey’s career as an entrepreneur and leader of a media empire. NANCY KOEHN: If we parachuted back to the mid-80s and Oprah being recruited to come and do a talk show in Chicago, Chicago A.M., we would see a landscape of television talk shows that look quite a bit different. NANCY KOEHN: I think the way she came to that decision was that she got moved from more hard news, this is in Baltimore, this is the stepping stone to Chicago and the beginnings of what would be The Oprah Winfrey Show in the mid-80s.