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In 2014, on her first day as head of marketing at Beats Music, Bozoma Saint John told her new staff: “I’m a new widow. My husband died four months ago from cancer. I have a 4-year-old daughter.” Born in Connecticut in 1977 to Ghanaian parents, she had spent nine years at PepsiCo, where she worked on the company’s deals with Beyoncé, and went on to run marketing at Apple Music, Uber, Endeavor and Netflix. In 2023 she published her only book, a memoir not about the career but about the losses underneath it. This guide covers her one book: what it is about and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 1 key books · 2023–2023 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Bozoma Saint John has written one book: The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival (2023), published by Viking. It moves from her husband Peter’s cancer diagnosis back to her childhood in Ghana and the United States, through the death of a premature daughter and a separation, to his death in 2013 and her life as a widow and single mother. Start there; it is the only place she tells the story herself, and she narrates the audiobook.
Where to Start with Bozoma Saint John
If you want a memoir about grief
→ The Urgent Life (2023) — a husband, a daughter and a college boyfriend lost.
If you want the woman behind the marketing career
→ The Urgent Life (2023) — Pepsi, Apple Music, Uber and Netflix seen from the inside of her life.
If you want a story about faith and doubt
→ The Urgent Life (2023) — her changing relationship with God after Peter’s death.
The Book by Bozoma Saint John
The Urgent Life
The memoir opens with her husband Peter’s terminal cancer diagnosis, then goes back to her childhood: a family that left Ghana after her father’s political imprisonment, moves between continents, a college boyfriend’s suicide, and an interracial marriage. It covers the death of their first daughter, Eve, born prematurely after preeclampsia, the couple’s separation, their reconciliation when Peter fell ill, and his death in December 2013. Published by Viking on 21 February 2023 (288 pages); Oprah Daily listed it among the most anticipated books of 2023, and Publishers Weekly called her approach “forthright”.
How to Read Bozoma Saint John
There is only one book, so there is no order to work out. The Urgent Life is not told strictly in sequence: it starts with Peter’s diagnosis in 2013 and then goes back to her childhood, so the earlier losses are read in the light of the one that frames the book.
Readers who know her from marketing or from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills should expect little about either. The career is present mainly as background to the grief; the book was finished after she left Netflix in March 2022.
A reading path
1. The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival (2023)
The years · 1977–2023
Quick facts about Bozoma Saint John
- Known for
- Saint John is known as one of the most visible marketing executives in American business, with senior roles at PepsiCo, Apple Music, Uber, Endeavor and Netflix, where she was the first Black member of the C-suite.
- 1977
- Born in Middletown, Connecticut
- 1999
- Graduates from Wesleyan University
- 2013
- Peter Saint John dies of cancer
- 2023
- The Urgent Life
- Born
- 21 January 1977, Middletown, Connecticut; raised partly in Ghana, then Colorado Springs
- Education
- Wesleyan University, 1999 (English and African-American studies)
- Career
- PepsiCo (2005–2014), Beats Music and Apple Music (2014–2017), Uber (2017–2018), Endeavor (2018–2020)
- Netflix
- Chief marketing officer, August 2020 – March 2022
- Honours
- Fortune 40 Under 40 (2016); American Marketing Association Marketing Hall of Fame (2022)
- Television
- Cast member of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills from season 14 (2024)
- Family
- Married Peter Saint John in 2003; he died in 2013. One daughter, Lael
The red mark is 2023: The Urgent Life, her memoir and only book.
How Bozoma Saint John Writes: Grief First, Career Second
The Urgent Life is built around one loss and reaches back to the others. By opening with Peter’s diagnosis and then returning to her childhood, Saint John reads the earlier events — her family’s departure from Ghana, the suicide of a college boyfriend, the death of her daughter Eve — as preparation for the one that defines the book. The Wesleyan alumni review noted the wry humour that runs alongside this.
She is direct about the parts of the marriage that went wrong. She and Peter had separated and planned to divorce before he fell ill; she has said they never divorced and reconciled when he got sick. On NPR in 2023 she said she had felt shame after losing Eve, “feeling like I had failed womanhood”, and that she was “not over it”.
Faith runs through the book, but not as consolation. Saint John writes about a relationship with God that changed after Peter’s death, and in interviews she has said she does not see his death as part of a good plan. The title names the conclusion she draws: to live with urgency, which she has described as intentional rather than reckless.
Watch
Bozoma Saint John on The Urgent Life
Bozoma Saint John discusses her memoir The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival at a Zibby author event. From the official Zibby Events channel.
Frequently asked questions about Bozoma Saint John’s book
How many books has Bozoma Saint John written?
One: The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival (2023), published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
How many books has Bozoma Saint John written?
There is only one, The Urgent Life (2023).
Where should I start with Bozoma Saint John?
With The Urgent Life, her only book. The audiobook, just under eight hours long, is narrated by Saint John herself.
What is Bozoma Saint John’s most famous book?
The Urgent Life (2023), the only book she has written.
What is The Urgent Life about?
Grief and how she lived through it. It starts with her husband Peter’s cancer diagnosis, then returns to her childhood between Ghana and the United States, a college boyfriend’s suicide, her interracial marriage, the death of a premature daughter, a separation, and finally Peter’s death in December 2013 and her life as a widow and single mother.
Who was Bozoma Saint John’s husband?
Peter Saint John, who worked in print production and advertising in New York. They met in the cafeteria of the building where they both worked and married in 2003. He died of cancer on 11 December 2013, aged 43, leaving Bozoma and their daughter Lael.
What does “the urgent life” mean?
Saint John uses it for the way she chose to live after Peter’s diagnosis and death: refusing to wait for things she wants. Quoted by Fortune in 2023, she put it this way: “But urgency is not reckless. It is intentional.”
Did Bozoma Saint John work at Netflix?
Yes. She was chief marketing officer of Netflix from August 2020 to March 2022, the company’s first Black C-level executive. Before that she ran marketing at Endeavor, was chief brand officer at Uber, and head of global consumer marketing at Apple Music.
Is Bozoma Saint John on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?
She joined The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as a full-time cast member for season 14, announced in May 2024. In autumn 2025 she also co-hosted On Brand with Jimmy Fallon.
What did Bozoma Saint John do at Pepsi?
She spent 2005 to 2014 at PepsiCo, ending as head of music and entertainment marketing. She worked on five marketing deals with Beyoncé, culminating in a 50 million dollar deal that covered her 2012 tour and Pepsi’s sponsorship of her 2013 Super Bowl halftime show.
Footnotes
- Bozoma Saint John — Wikipedia
- The Urgent Life — Penguin Random House
- Bozoma Saint John writes of love, loss and survival — NPR, 2023
- Bozoma Saint John on her husband, her book and her daughter — Fortune, 2023
- Books by Wesleyan authors — Wesleyan University, 2023
- Apple Music’s Bozoma Saint John — Fortune, 2016
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I have questions for God at the end. I do. I will challenge that decision.”
— Bozoma Saint John, interviewed by Asma Khalid on NPR (2023), on her husband’s death
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