Aspire with Bozoma Saint John: Why Playing Small Is Sabotaging Your Success (and How to Stop)

Aspire with Emma Grede

E13 Media

Entrepreneurship, Society & Culture, Business

4.6 • 877 Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2025

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this electrifying sit-down, marketing powerhouse Bozoma Saint John tells Emma Grede how trusting her gut—and refusing to shrink—propelled her from a junior assistant’s cubicle to the C-suite, and now to founding the hair-care disruptor, Eve by Boz. She unpacks why “excellence is a baseline” was the mantra drilled into her by her Ghanaian parents, shares the exact language she used to claim credit without apology, and explains why ditching a rigid five-year plan unlocked once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Boz dives deep on separating ego from intuition, funding a factory in Ghana to center Black women in a $7-billion industry, and spotting the storytelling through-line that ties every bold career move together. If you’re ready to amplify your voice, own your wins, and make audacious moves, this conversation is your playbook—hit subscribe, and share it with someone who needs a confidence boost today. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you ever wondered what it takes to design the career of your dreams?
0:14.1	By the end of today's episode, you'll have the answer.
0:17.6	Meet Bozema St John, marketing force behind Apple, Uber and Netflix. She shreds
0:23.2	the rulebook on how to own your story, bankroll your vision and turn selfish into career rocket fuel.
0:29.4	Stick around. Your blueprint for a fearless career starts now. Bose, welcome to aspire.
0:43.5	My pleasure to be here.
0:45.2	I am so happy to have you here, honestly.
0:47.7	Just the very sight of you makes me happy with that smile and like the whole thing.
0:53.7	I'm in my Bose look today with the sequence and like the whole thing. I'm in my Bowes look today with the sequence
0:56.8	and the colour because we know I don't like sequence and colour. Well, but we're matching in our sequence and colour. Yes, we are. Well, I don't have sequence on. Yes, we are. Well, you usually do. You are a sequin, my darling. You are just a bright, shining soul. I'm a human sequence. Literally.
1:09.5	Of all the compliments to start with.
1:11.5	Yeah, yeah, there you go.
1:12.2	That's it.
1:12.7	So, I love it.
1:13.1	I want to jump straight in because someone... I'm a human sequence. Literally. Of all the compliments to start with.
1:11.5	There you go.
1:12.1	That's it.
1:12.7	So, I want to jump straight in because something that we talk about in business all the time is excellence.
1:17.8	And what I read about you and your childhood was that excellence was just the expectation.
1:23.8	There was no middle.
1:25.9	There was no okay.
1:27.4	And so I kind of want you to take me back a little bit and talk to me about your childhood, your upbringing, but mostly how that relates to who you are and how you come into the world today. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, that's great. I mean, I love starting there because I like to start with DNA. You know, and I think I have... Yeah, I do have excellent DNA.
	...

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