CEO Diaries: Bozoma Saint John on Growing Through Grief & Leading with Purpose

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

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Steven Bartlett (0:33)

In today's Moments episode, we're featuring one of the most iconic brand builders of all time, the former CMO of Netflix and Chief Brand Officer of Uber, Bozoma Saint John. Bozoma's perspective on marketing is fresh because it's not just about algorithms or trends, it's about something far more powerful. It's about curiosity, curiosity about people, why they choose what they choose, what moves them, what scares them and what makes them say yes. In B2B marketing, just like in life, we're not talking to businesses, we're talking to people. If you want to understand the real edge behind influential marketing, this is the moment to listen in. Your first real significant career move seemed to be this encounter with Spike Lee's agency. Yeah. For people that don't know, who is Spike Lee and how did that happen?

Bozoma Saint John (1:18)

Spike Lee is blackity, blackity, black, first of all.

All the blackness. No, but he is a film director really at his core, filmmaker, let's call it that, because he certainly produces and does other things and writes. But he has an advertising agency in New York. When I was there, it was on Madison Avenue. So Madison Avenue is like the place for advertising in the world, right? It's the place where the show Mad Men was made from. So DDB is one of the biggest agencies and Spike had a JV with them.

Steven Bartlett (1:57)

What brought you to New York in the first place?

Bozoma Saint John (2:00)

Curiosity. I graduated from Wesley University, which was in Middletown, Connecticut, and it was just time to apply to med school, and I really didn't want to. And New York was right there. It was like an hour and a half from school, and I really didn't have a plan. I just went, trying to escape what I thought was my destiny.

And like many people say, I think sometimes in this business, I kind of fell into this. But I think my destiny actually came to find me. That's what it was. I opened up and allowed for something greater that I didn't even know was possible to find me instead.

Steven Bartlett (2:41)

So many people are in that chapter of their life where they're trying to find their destiny or trying to help, trying to figure out a way to let their destiny find them.

Bozoma Saint John (2:50)

Yeah.

Steven Bartlett (2:51)

When you look back and connect the dots as to how your career came to be, and you think about that first moment where you went to New York and then you're on Madison Avenue, you're working for Spike Lee, and you find your destiny or it finds you. If your daughter comes to you and says, mom, what advice have you got for me on finding my destiny? Like, what have I got to do to actively bring you in about?

Bozoma Saint John (3:12)

Have you ever heard that statement like let go and let God? Have you heard that before? It's a very Christian thing. I feel like in the black church, there's a lot of that, let go and let God, as if God is just going to just sprinkle magic dust over you. And I'm like, no, I don't necessarily believe that just as a plain statement. I think the letting go is an action. It's not surrender. It's not like you just lay down and it's going to find you. You're not going to find your destiny sitting on the couch. The letting go for me is like the letting go of preconceived ideas about what it is that you are going to do. Letting go of, sometimes you're like trying to do something and keep hitting a wall. You're just like, oh, if I just hit it one more time, it's going to break.

Sometimes it's like, you know that's a cement wall, right? If you just move five feet to the right, it's actually plaster and you're going to go right through it. Sometimes it's the letting go of this thought that you had, which is like, oh, I'm going to do this thing right here, is the magic. I'll tell you this, look, it didn't just happen at that stage of my life, it's happening right now.