Rena Golden, the senior director of digital content for The Weather Company and a former senior VP at CNN International and CNN.com, has died at age 51 after a two-year battle with Lymphoma.
Golden joined CNN in 1985 as a producer, rising to supervisor in 1993, VP in 1997 and the senior VP level at CNNI in 2000, eventually moving to CNN.com in 2007. She joined The Weather Channel in November, 2011.
She is survived by her husband, Rob Golden, and two children. Rena met Rob while both were working at CNN in 1987, as her obituary notes:
Rob Golden worked as a journalist in the newsroom. The two fell for each other, and in 1987, colleagues put together a mock newscast, in which he asked her to marry him.
She thought she was watching a real newscast on TV. Rob Golden’s appearance on the screen took her by surprise.
In an email to Weather Company staff this morning, CEO David Kenny wrote of Golden:
For those of us who had the pleasure to work with her, we can take comfort in knowing how much we enjoyed that time and how fortunate we are to have had her in our lives. Rena loved this company and her team, and it continued until yesterday to be her goal to come back to TWC and edit a headline and suggest a story for the site.
Her family has created a virtual memorial for people to leave their thoughts: