As successful as Bozoma Saint John has been, she’ll never be a “gatekeeper of secrets.”
That’s why, after a storied career as a marketing executive at companies like Netflix and Uber, she created The Badass Workshop, an online course designed to give women real, specific tools to become more confident and successful in the workplace. “I have really prided myself in being transparent in my conversations, both publicly and privately, and I think people have appreciated that,” Saint John says in an interview with PS speaking about her partnership with Violife. “People often asked me, ‘How am I supposed to negotiate a raise?’ or ‘How did you climb to the top?’ People always give you these weird, vague answers. And I was like, you know what? I’m actually going to tell you how to negotiate for more money. If you want to become a better public speaker, do this. Don’t do that.”
I want to be able to put people in positions whose stories have not been seen before. And that for me feels fulfilling.
When she joined the cast of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” season 14 last year, she wasn’t looking for fame or money – she simply wanted to represent a different kind of “housewife.” “Perhaps we’re thinking, maybe I get fame or maybe I get accolades or whatnot,” she says. “But that comes with the territory. You put yourself out there and people will know you. They’ll know your name; they’ll know your business. But I want to get more than that. I want to be able to put people in positions whose stories have not been seen before. And that for me feels fulfilling.”
Saint John describes her role in the cast as “one that I feel like hasn’t been seen yet” on the franchise: “I’m a self-made, corporate executive who is a single mom and a widow who is trying to expand her family and find love again. Those things I feel like are a real deal contribution to a conversation that was already happening, but then I can add my story and my spin to it.”
Her desire to expand her family is something that she knew was impactful to share publicly. On the show, Saint John underwent surgery to remove a fibroid, later discovering she actually had 12, to increase her chances of potentially conceiving in the future. “Women go through things and feel shame as a result of it,” she says. “It’s so baffling to me that we live in a society where something that is a health issue could be seen as shameful because it affects your reproductive ability.”
It was important to her to allow viewers to raise awareness about fibroids, which are more common in Black women than any other racial group, and change the stigma around women’s health issues. “I wanted to make sure that they saw somebody like me, who people look at and think, ‘She’s such a baddie and she’s a corporate, fierce woman who’s raced up these ladders and she’s got things going for her,'” she says. “And I’m like, no, I’m also struggling. This is a part of my life I don’t have control over and I’m trying to just get better and have an opportunity to fix something that is problematic for me. And there is no shame in that at all.”
Saint John’s introduction to the franchise also marked her entry into entrepreneurship. In November, she launched Eve by Boz, a hair-care and wig line for women of color. She’s always loved hair and embraced it in all forms, especially after the CROWN Act was passed. “At first, I was really mad that people would talk about my hair so much, whether it was publicly or in meetings,” she says. “You would not imagine the number of conversations I’ve had about my hair. But it almost felt like revolution for me to wear my hair in whatever kind of state I wanted to while I was highly visible as a corporate executive.”
But before embarking on the business, she wanted to make sure she was contributing meaningfully to the hair-care space. In her research, she found that Black women and women of color didn’t have “any representation” throughout the manufacturing, innovation, and supply process, despite making up 80 percent of the consumer base. “I was like, if I jump in here and try my hand at this, I’ve got to go all the way,” she says. She built a factory in Ghana to manufacture the wigs and hair care; she partnered with a woman chemist in LA to incorporate ingredients from all over Africa; and she funded the business all by herself.
As for her future on “RHOBH,” Saint John doesn’t have any plans to leave the show. Though a cryptic Instagram post last month hinting she was “quitting something” caused speculation, she’s now confirmed the big news: she’s actually quitting dairy.
Yerin Kim (she/her) is the features editor at PS, where she writes, assigns, and edits feature stories and helps shape the vision for special projects and identity content across the network. Originally from Seoul and currently based in New York City, she’s passionate about elevating diverse perspectives and spreading cultural sensitivity through the lenses of lifestyle, style, wellness, and pop culture. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, she has over six years of experience in the women’s lifestyle space.
