Bozoma Saint John and the case for building a personal brand as an executive

You probably know the name Bozoma Saint John.

If you don’t, commit it to memory now. Bozoma - or Boz, as she’s often called - is a superstar marketing executive who has made waves in the business world for simply being herself. And with the news that she is the newest cast member of Bravo’s the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”, she’s on the verge of reaching new heights of stardom.

As a marketing expert, there’s plenty we can learn from Bozoma, but what stands out is her ability to market herself. Throughout her high-level roles at Apple, Uber and Netflix, and now as an author and entrepreneur, she prioritized her personal brand as much as the brands she works for. In a world where a lot of executives struggle to develop their own voices – because they don’t have time, or feel embarrassed, or are stifled by their companies – Bozoma has proven that authenticity pays off.

She moved from Ghana to Colorado when she was 12 years old, and studied pre-med in college. Worried that being a doctor wasn’t her passion, she took a gap year in New York before she was set to go to med school. She took a job answering phones for Spike Lee’s ad agency, and fell in love with marketing and advertising. 

From there she went to PepsiCo, where she worked on major campaigns with celebrities like Beyonce and Eminem. Then came a stint at Apple; it was 2016 when she walked on stage at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference to talk about new music services and caught the attention of the Internet. [Could you ask for a better headline than “Bozoma Saint John Was Badass Long Before Apple”?]

Then there was Uber, Endeavor and Netflix, where she held c-suite positions and built her public persona at the same time. She’s received a ton of recognition over the years, including being inducted into the American Marketing Association Hall of Fame in 2022 and named the #1 Most Influential CMO in the world by Forbes. Bozoma left Netflix in 2023 - and reports followed that her departure was because she was too focused on her personal brand.

Don’t let that scare you, though, because Bozoma is doing just fine. Around that same time, she published her memoir, and today is running The Badass Workshop and working closely to support her home country of Ghana. Plus she’s a single mom to her daughter Lael. And later this year she’ll make her debut on one of Bravo’s most popular shows.

What Bozoma is doing is working. And while she doesn’t need to justify it, she does a great job doing so in this Entrepreneur interview. [It’s behind a paywall, but you can read it on her LinkedIn.] Here are a couple of gems from the story:

• “This applies for everyone, but especially for women trying to become a better-known executive. One of the most undervalued ideas is: When you are better known for the things you do, your value goes up.”

• “Your brand already exists. It’s called your reputation. And if you are not actively involved in it, then somebody else is creating it for you. So would you rather leave your reputation up to somebody else’s imagination, or would you rather do it yourself?”

How exactly does she do it? Her strategy seems to have three buckets: social media, speaking opportunities and ownable projects. We’ll focus on her social media, but it’s worth noting that the other two feed her accounts. Bozoma is getting content out of everything she does.

She favors the Meta platforms, being most active on Instagram and cross-posting that content to her Facebook, as well as posting occasional Threads (she recently said she was going to use the platform more after a meeting with Meta). She’s also a Top Voice on LinkedIn, where she has 123,000 followers, but posts more infrequently. Her accounts on Twitter and TikTok have been dormant for awhile, but it’s worth visiting her TikTok because there’s a ton of great business advice there.

Bozoma is a must-follow in our book. You’ll learn about building a personal brand but also get so many gems about business and life. After you do follow her, here are a few things to keep an eye on when you see her in your feed:

The way she speaks in her own voice: Let’s be honest, Bozoma probably has help with social media, as in someone to take photos and video, maybe even to post. If that same person is writing her captions, they are crushing it. Every post feels undeniably Bozoma, whether it’s the use of capital letters or her chosen hashtags. It can be challenging to go from corporate email speak to the natural way you talk with your friends, but to stand out, that is important. People follow you to hear from you. 

How she keeps up with trends: Bozoma has said that when she moved to Colorado from Ghana, she had a hard time making friends, so she needed to find something to talk about with her classmates. That was when she started keeping up with pop culture, and she fell in love. That comes through on social media when she uses Instagram Stories to comment on a trending moment or makes a Reel with a popular sound. In marketing, relevance is everything.

When she gets personal: Bozoma attributes her confidence to what she’s been through. In 2013, her husband died after a short battle with cancer, and she was left as a widow and single mom to a little girl. She isn’t afraid to talk about her grief, or the struggles of being her daughter Lael’s only parent. She’s also not afraid to talk about how much she loves being a mom. In fact, she talks about Lael so much, she has dubbed her followers Lael’s uncles and aunties. They see her talk about her personal life just as much as her work life - sometimes more - and feel a deeper connection to her because of it.

To put a bow on it all, this sentiment from the Entrepreneur interview sums it up perfectly: Bozoma’s advice is to identify what makes you special and unique, what about you can be celebrated, and use that to your advantage.

“This is not arrogance,” she said. “It’s awareness.”