(Archive) 101. The Badass Boss with Bozoma Saint John (replay)

At the beginning of her career, Bozoma Saint John turned down a job at Goldman Sachs and, shortly afterwards, found herself temping for Spike Lee. Since then, she’s worked in C-level roles for the likes of Apple and Uber (being tasked with repairing their reputation after mistreatment of drivers and reports of sexual harassment surfaced) and is now Chief Marketing Officer at William Morris Endeavor. In this episode, she joins us to talk about being a Black woman in corporate America, the strange mixture of arrogance and diplomacy she’s sometimes been forced to employ to get her point across, and the benefits of choosing joy in the face of immense grief.

Bozoma Saint John talks about...

• How her parents are her superheroes, dating back to her childhood when her family escaped a violent coup d'etat in Ghana
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• Her career path and how she chooses next steps-- it’s rarely about the money or about the title, but about what she will learn
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• Her experience of being a Black woman in a junior role, and the challenges she faced in being taken seriously
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• The work she has done to become her own cheerleader--take a page here!
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• The struggle to turn Uber into a lovable brand in the same year all their dirty laundry was revealed
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• Life’s unpredictability. Boz and her husband were living their best lives when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer
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• The art of resilience in the face of grief and loss

Resources:

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Highway To Well is a production of Crate Media