A Look Inside The Life Of A Marketing Whiz

Katie Couric gives us an exclusive tour of a day in the life of the marketing empress herself, Bozoma Saint John.

You may think that the title empress may seem a bit extreme, but Bozoma St. John is truly a powerful woman on top and creating an empire for herself. She’s worked for the top names in marketing including Pepsi, Apple Music, and Uber. Now she’s making a name of herself in her most recent endeavor, being the Chief Marketing Officer for Endeavor.

St. John actually thought at one point that she was going to be a doctor and was planning on going to medical school. She was unsure of going to medical school so she decided to take a year off, which was the pivotal moment that lead her to marketing.

At 22 she made her big break with her first job working with director Spike Lee and would consult the younger people of the office to see what was relevant to them with pop culture, in comes St. John.

During this time was when Beyonce was breaking away from the singing group, Destiney’s Child, and transition into her solo career. One day they were pitching Pepsi as a client and Lee asked her, “What do you see in that?”

St. Johns reply simply put, “Beyonce,” which later led to one of the most successful endorsement deals by Pepsi and helping to launch Beyonce’s solo career. Not to mention, this also launched St. John’s career working for Pepsi and she stayed with the company for nearly 10 years.

Shortly after 2013 her husband died from lymphoma and she decided to mover with her daughter to Los Angeles, where she happened to meet divine intervention. She met the Jimmy Iovine which was working on making a revolutionary pair of headphones that you might have heard of called Beats.

On top of the Beat Electronics business Iovine was building another business on top of that and he told St. John, “You need something to pull you out of the past and this is it.”

Little did she know how big the company was to become. Before she knew it she was working for the leading music streaming company, Apple Music. St. John worked as the head of marketing for iTunes and Apple Music.

Fast-forward to now, St. John works for Endeavor is working with entrepreneurs to help connect them with partners. St. John is an example to follow, supporting the next generation.