NABJ Highlights, Networking Gems & A Little White-Collar Drama

Brown Ambition

iHeartPodcasts

Careers, Education, Self-improvement, Investing, Business

4.9 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hey BA Fam, pull up a chair at the Brown Table! This week Mandi is joined by two returning guests: Jonquilyn Hill from Vox Media and Yvie Saint-Louis from Blavity. Fresh from NABJ’s 50th anniversary conference in Cleveland, the ladies swap stories on conference strategy, avoiding burnout, and why the hotel bar might just be your best networking move.

We get into:

NABJ 2024 recap — from career fairs to that family reunion energy, and why you don’t need to hit every event to make it count.
Networking tips that actually work — think conference apps, lateral connections, and the perfect follow-up email.
Higher Heights wins — celebrating Black women making major political strides nationwide.
Corporate card chaos — the jaw-dropping story of a media exec who racked up nearly $300K in personal expenses (yes, Botox included).
Black-Owned Business Month shout-outs — from luxe candles to curl-defining gel you’ll want in your cart yesterday.
Pop culture corner — why The Gilded Age is having a moment, and our collective side-eye at unnecessary reboots.

Plus, Mandi drops our latest Brown Ambition Book Club pick — The Ghost of Gwendolyn Montgomery by Clarence Haynes — a spooky, stylish, and sexy read you’ll want to grab before next week’s author interview.

It’s laughs, lessons, and a little tea — just the way we like it at the Brown Table.

Let’s Connect:
IG: @brownambitionpodcast | @mandimoney
Email: [email protected]

We launched a Patreon! 🎉
🎥 Get early access to ad-free video recordings, join our BA book club, and even score a seat live in the studio during tapings. 👉 patreon.com/brownambition

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:04.5	Adventure should never come with a pause button.
0:07.1	Remember Movie Pass?
0:08.4	All the movies you wanted for just nine bucks?
0:11.1	I'm Bridget Todd, host of There Are No Girls on the Internet.
0:13.9	And this season, I'm digging into the tech stories we weren't told.
0:17.4	Starting with Stacey Spikes, the black founder of movie pass who got pushed out of the company he
0:21.9	built. Everybody's trying to knock you down and it's not going to work and no one's going to like it.
0:27.3	And then boom, it's everywhere. And that was that moment. Listen to there are no girls on the
0:31.7	internet on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I think black
0:35.8	women where we live are so involved in the community and are so community-oriented
0:40.7	that to be able to mobilize votes, we are much more likely to win because we already have so much.
0:47.9	We can already say we've poured so much into our community.
0:50.5	I mean, we've seen it so many times.
0:52.4	Like, even with when Kamala was running,
0:56.0	it was like, announced one day, next day, multiple of her communities were able to help raise and
1:03.1	really like stand behind her. And we do that all the time. This is kind of what black women do. Yeah, I'm so interested to see, like, how it continued plays out in 2026. You know, we have midterms. And then in 2028, what are we going to see? Are we going to see even more black women running for office?
1:33.4	What's up, BA fam? It's Brown Ambition. It's your girl Mandy Money. And we are here for the Brown Table. I am so happy to be joined by these lovely ladies. These are two-time guests of the show.
1:40.8	We have JQ from Vox Media. Hello, JQ. Hello. It is so great to be back.
1:48.4	You're a second time guest, so I can just skip to calling you JQ. No formality need. And then we have
1:54.7	Evie St. Louis from Blavity. What's up, Evie? Hello, hello. Good to be back. How are y'all doing? I'm coming off of NABJ in Cleveland, so I'm like, ah, yeah. I was with my people, and now this feels just like a continuation of getting to be with my people. And so that's very nice. I know. I saw you for like 30 seconds at NABJ. I know. I think I was running off to like grab a nap in between sessions.
2:19.5	Yeah, I was at NABJ. I got there on the Wednesday and I don't know if you, I'm super congested and I sound
	...

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