BozomaSaint John is an American businesswoman and marketing executive who is the current Chief Marketing Officer at Netflix. Previously, she served as CMO at Endeavor, and chief brand officer at Uber until June 2018. Saint John was also a marketing executive at Apple Music until June 2017, after joining the company in its acquisition of Beats Music.
Early life
Saint John was born to Rev. Dr. Appianda Arthur and Aba Arthur in the United States but moved to Ghana at 6 months old. The family returned to the United States and settled in Colorado Springs, Colorado when she was 12. Her father was a clarinet player and member of the Ghana Army before emigrating to the United States to attend graduate school. Saint John cites her father as her biggest inspiration. In 1999, she graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in English. Her father received a PhD in ethnomusicology in 1977, also from Wesleyan.
Career
After college, Saint John worked at the advertising agencies Arnold Worldwide and Spike Lee's Spike DDB, as well as the fashion brand Ashley Stewart, where she was Vice President of Marketing. Saint John led PepsiCo's foray into music festival-based marketing as head of the Music and Entertainment Marketing. She remained with the company for almost a decade before joining Beats Music in 2014; when Jimmy Iovine of Beats personally recruited Saint John based on her experience in music marketing, Saint John moved from New York to Los Angeles to lead marketing for the company. Beats was purchased shortly thereafter by Apple and Saint John became the head of global consumer marketing for iTunes and Apple Music, commuting between Los Angeles and Apple's Cupertino headquarters several times a week. Journalists described Saint John's presentation of the redesigned Apple Music onstage during the 2016 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as her breakthrough moment, with a captivating "passion" and persona that captivated both local and online audiences. Biz Carson of Business Insider said that her appearance helped to emphasize Apple's complete rebuild of its Apple Music software. For instance, she attempted to have the audience sing along with on-screen lyrics, a feature in the redesigned app. Buzzfeed wrote that she was the "coolest" person to ever take the stage at an Apple keynote. Magazines recognized Saint John's work in superlative lists including Billboard Magazine list of the top women in music, Fast Company 100 most creative people, and AdWeek most exciting personalities in advertising. On June 6, 2017, Saint John became Chief Brand Officer at Uber. She was given the task of turning Uber into a brand that people love as much as Apple. In June 2018, Saint John left Uber to join Endeavor as Chief Marketing Officer. Her reason being was “When I got to Uber I was honest in my desire to go and change essentially what I thought was a challenging environment, especially for women and for people of colour...What I discovered was a lot of people who had a desire to do better, honestly, but couldn’t get out of their own way...At some point it became too overwhelming for me...It became a good lesson for all of us: You don’t need to be the savior, you can save yourself too.” In May 2020, Saint John launched an iHeart Media podcast alongside award-winning journalist Katie Couric, “,” which explores the ways thought leaders, CEOs and innovators are responding to the societal shifts that have been ushered in by the coronavirus pandemic. Most recently, Saint John launched the Instagram initiative; alongside , Glennon Doyle, and Stacey Bendet. On June 10, 2020, 52 Black women took over the Instagram feeds of 52 white women with large platforms, magnifying Black women and the important work that they’re doing in order to catalyze change. The campaign was incredibly successful, collecting 17 billion impressions. Saint John's philanthropic efforts include representing Pencils of Promise as a Global Ambassador to Ghana and serving on the boards of Girls Who Code and Vital Voices. Netflix named Bozoma Saint John its new CMO on June 30th, 2020. Netflix is bringing in Bozoma Saint John to serve as its chief marketing officer, making her the third CMO for the streamer in 2019-2020. Saint John will join Netflix from Endeavor, where she has served as CMO since 2018. She replaces Jackie Lee-Joe who is leaving the company for personal reasons. Saint John will start in the role in August 2020.
Personal life
Saint John was married to Peter Saint John until his death in 2013. They have one daughter, Lael Saint John. In spite of all of her professional success, Saint John considers her greatest accomplishment to be mothering Lael. After the death of Peter, Boz also took on the efforts of raising funding for cancer research and has been recognized by the TJ Martell Foundation for her devotion to the cause.
