By: Shawn Mars

Alison Maloni turned 50 this year, and she is reinventing herself again. The national news anchor, author, podcast host, and college professor has spent more than two decades working in journalism, public relations, and media. Today she also works as a personal branding strategist for women who want to become known for what they do.

This reinvention looks different from her first one. That earlier rebuild came in her early 40s, and it arrived without a plan. “I didn’t wake up one morning suddenly confident and know exactly what I was going to do,” Maloni said. “I just kept going.”

Starting Over as a Single Mother in Her 40s

Alison Maloni describes that period plainly. She was a single mother raising three daughters, her wedding had been called off, and the company she had founded was barely holding on. Money was extremely tight. She remembers hiding in the shower to cry so her girls would not hear her, and standing on soccer sidelines next to parents who seemed to have everything figured out.

“I just knew I had three girls depending on me, so giving up wasn’t an option,” she said.

The pressure had deeper roots. Maloni experienced significant loss at a young age and, by her own account, became an overachiever as a way to prove her worth. She worked hard, became a journalist, and launched her own firm, Alison May Communications, where she serves as founder and CEO. Looking back, she believes part of that drive came from wanting to prove something to other people, as if the next accomplishment might finally make her feel like enough.

Rebuilding happened in small, unglamorous steps. She went to work on days she didn’t feel like it. She accepted opportunities that scared her, asked people for advice and help, and kept growing the business. She also made a deliberate decision about where to focus her energy. “I knew that in order to grow my business, I had to grow my personal brand, and that was my main focus,” she said.

Over time, the pieces came back together. Maloni returned to television and eventually became a national news anchor and contributor. She wrote two books, began speaking, launched the podcast Unscripted with Alison Maloni, and started teaching college students about the industry where she has spent most of her working life. Somewhere in that process, she realized she wasn’t only rebuilding a career. She was rebuilding herself.

How Did Showing Up Change Her Personal Brand?

For Alison Maloni, the turning point had less to do with tactics than with honesty. For years she was careful about what people saw, presenting the successful business owner, the polished journalist, the person with everything under control. “I was trying to be perfect because I wanted to impress certain people,” she said. Eventually she got tired of doing that.

So she started sharing more of her real life. She talked about motherhood, divorce, and starting over. She posted about business, getting older, confidence, and the lessons she was still learning. The rule she set for herself was simple. Stop waiting for the perfect picture or the perfect thing to say.

Consistency turned out to be harder than candor. Maloni kept posting when she didn’t feel like it, when a post drew little engagement, and when she wondered whether anyone cared what she had to say. That persistence is a point she returns to often, because it runs against the instinct many professionals have to pull back the moment something feels uncomfortable or goes unnoticed.

Then something clicked. “The less I tried to impress people, the more people connected with me,” she said. “And the more I let people see the real me, the more comfortable I became with that person too.”

She frames the change as the difference between constructing an image and reflecting a person. “I wasn’t trying to create a brand anymore,” Maloni said. “I was finally allowing my brand to actually reflect me.”

Why Visibility Sits at the Center of Her Work

When Alison Maloni talks with women about personal branding now, social media is only part of the conversation. The broader subject is visibility, meaning the willingness to put yourself and your ideas in front of other people. Her work focuses on helping women define what they want to be known for and then develop the confidence and strategy to show up consistently.

Many of the women she meets are already accomplished. They want to grow their businesses, appear on podcasts, speak at events, earn media coverage or build a reputation in their field. In her experience, fear is usually what stands in the way. They worry about being judged or looking like they are bragging. Some doubt they have anything interesting to say, while others plan to start once they have everything figured out.

Maloni recognizes each of those hesitations. “I get it because I’ve done all of those things,” she said.

Two decades in newsrooms and public relations shape how she thinks about the problem. From her vantage point, expertise on its own rarely draws attention. “Being good at what you do isn’t always enough,” she said. “People have to know you exist. They need to hear your ideas. They need to know your story. They need to see you consistently.”

Her book Breaking in the News: Build Buzz for Your Brand takes up that same question of how a brand gets noticed. Maloni puts the underlying principle more bluntly in conversation. “You can’t wait for someone else to decide you’re worth paying attention to.”

Reinventing Again at 50

Alison Maloni says she approaches this chapter with a different motive. She is no longer trying to prove she is enough, no longer trying to impress particular people, and has no interest in pretending her life is perfect. Her second book, Rising Above: Empowering Stories of Women Overcoming Adversity, reflects a similar interest in the harder parts of women’s stories.

She is open about the full record. She has been divorced, struggled financially, faced rejection, made mistakes, and questioned herself more times than she can count. She has also raised three daughters, built a business, anchored national news, written books, spoken on stages and taught students. In her view, all of it belongs in the story.

That conviction runs through the advice she gives other women about building a personal brand. “You don’t have to hide the messy parts of your story to build a successful personal brand,” Maloni said. “Those might actually be the parts that make people connect with you.”

The approach is visible in her own channels, where professional commentary sits alongside personal reflection on her Instagram account, in her professional updates on LinkedIn and in her posts on X. The mix is intentional, and it mirrors what she now encourages clients to do.

For someone who spent years worrying about measuring up, the goal at this stage is simpler. “At 50, I’m finally much more interested in just being me,” she said. What she wants now is to help other women reach that point a lot sooner than she did.