CYLS 199: Africa X Podcasting - The Blueprint to Female Leadership in New Media with Molly A. Jensen

2023-09-04

Episode Summary This week Kevin Y. Brown has a discussion with Molly Jensen, his colleague and CEO of the growing pan-African podcast hosting company, Afripods. They talk about how Afripods helps creators take up as much space as possible while getting paid for their genius, and the ways that they uniquely serve African creators and consumers. Molly shares how a New Yorker ended up in Nairobi, what she’s learned about leading and motivating a team, how she’s working to overcome challenges and get comfortable with discomfort and uncertainty, and the way...

Episode Summary

This week Kevin Y. Brown has a discussion with Molly Jensen, his colleague and CEO of the growing pan-African podcast hosting company, Afripods. They talk about how Afripods helps creators take up as much space as possible while getting paid for their genius, and the ways that they uniquely serve African creators and consumers. Molly shares how a New Yorker ended up in Nairobi, what she’s learned about leading and motivating a team, how she’s working to overcome challenges and get comfortable with discomfort and uncertainty, and the ways that her experience as an athlete have translated into her success as a CEO. Kevin and Molly discuss the personal habits that fuel their days, the idea of legacy, and the difference between the juice and the sauce–you’ll want to listen in to find out!

Kevin Y. Brown

Kevin is a seasoned multi-media executive who is passionate about Africa’s digital future. As an award winning entrepreneur, podcast producer (over 1,000 episodes across different genres with over 30 million downloads across clients) and tech veteran, Kevin is the Chief Content officer and Head of Strategy at Afripods leading their multi-country strategy and product vision.

Kevin is the host of the Create Your Life Series podcast and has been featured or spoken in Forbes, Black Enterprise, Essence, Podcast Movement, Podcast Sessions, Ted X, Sirius XM, Inc. magazine and many more…

Molly Jensen

Molly Jensen is the Chief Executive Officer of Afripods, a free pan-African podcast hosting platform building the largest library of African audio stories on the planet, based in Nairobi, Kenya. With the ability to categorize in over 50 languages and with content from over 30 countries including that from individual podcasters, radio stations and media houses, Afripods is the home for African podcasting across the continent and within the Diaspora. As a Ghanaian-American born in New York, Molly is extremely excited to help digitize African stories and wants to see African creators take up as much space as possible while creating avenues to help them get paid for their work. She has over ten years of experience across people management, sales, marketing and technology. Molly has spoken at Podcast Movement, Africa Podcast Day, Africa Media Festival, BBC Media Leaders conferences, and Advertising Week Africa as well as most recently featured in Forbes, The Guardian, Reuters, JamLab Africa, Podcast Sessions and Apple Podcasts.

Insights From the Episode

Advice on how you can fill your cup and show up for yourself so you can better support others
Tips for aspiring business leaders and women, in particular, wanting to build their own companies
Strategies for identifying distinguishing qualities in people and assembling a powerful team
What makes Afripods different from other podcast-hosting companies
Strategies for being a good leader and managing relationships with team members in the workplace
Discussion on the differences between doing business in Africa vs. in New York
Tips for problem-solving when your perspective is different from your team members
Thoughts on the future of podcasting in Kenya and Africa as a whole

Quotes From the Show

“With Afripods we’re able to speak to these creators, we’re able to create a technical solution for them, we’re able to advocate for them. When I look at my role it’s not just a privilege to be in a position as an executive, there’s a real responsibility to do right by the people on the ground. My job isn’t just enforcing my opinion; my job is listening to what creators want and then advocating for it and making sure that it happens alongside our incredible team. That’s what we do, and that’s why I think it’s important.” - Molly Jensen, Create Your Life Series, #199
“I think a lot of times you want everything to go right, and you’ll miss your opportunity to catch the wave by waiting for perfection. A lot of times it’s not you that’s causing the delay–it’s your team, it’s another person, it’s getting reviews back–and I think trusting yourself, you will never look back and be upset if you trusted yourself. You will look back and be upset if you trusted someone else and things went wrong, but if you trust yourself and you make a mistake, that’s just a learning experience. I’m definitely working on my ability to be comfortable with failing.“ - Molly Jensen, Create Your Life Series, #199
On doing business in Africa: “People care about relationships, which then goes back to this innate understanding of community. People matter. And once I really understood that the connecting piece of all this was people, I was able to lean in on experience and continue to research the best ways to get maximum value out of people.” - Molly Jensen, Create Your Life Series, #199
“Work is work, and when we have a problem or if someone feels disrespected, we have to stop. The thing is, we can argue until we’re blue in the face about if this table is black or if it’s navy blue… if someone says, ‘Are you blind? This table is black!’, that’s disrespectful. I think as you touch an emotion what happens is that you make people feel less than, you make people feel insecure, you make people feel not confident to speak, so from a work perspective, we can do as much work as we can–there’s going to be more work tomorrow and the day after that and after that–but if you feel unsafe, if you feel disrespected, if you feel you can’t voice your opinion, we have to stop and handle that.” - Molly Jensen, Create Your Life Series, #199
“Everyone who has an opinion thinks their opinion is right–that’s the thing about an opinion. For me, I am working at being better at listening, hearing people all the way through. Not just having my thought and waiting to speak my thought, but actually hearing what someone else says.” - Molly Jensen, Create Your Life Series, #199
“The funny thing about making a mistake is someone can tell you that you’re about to make a mistake and it won't stop you from making the mistake. Sometimes you have to make the mistake yourself and know how bad it is so you won’t do it again.” - Molly Jensen, Create Your Life Series, #199
“When you distill it, we’re really talking about storytelling in Africa and the opportunity to memorialize language, the opportunity to reposition and evolve regular radio talk shows to a more on-demand version. I don’t think radio’s going anywhere, but I think podcasts provide another opportunity for people to engage with highly specialized niche content, and why would we let anyone who doesn’t care about that into this space? I think that it’s a win across the board, whether big multinationals come into place, whether local businesses are built up, what we know is that Afropods is advocating for the creator which means that everyone is going to have to advocate for the creator. You’re not going to be able to be successful if you don’t advocate for the creator, and I feel very proud about that.” - Molly Jensen, Create Your Life Series, #199
“I am one of those people that believe I want my life to be measured in moments of celebration. I throw a party for everything, and what I’m so grateful for is that my community shows up. When I ask for help, they show up.” - Molly Jensen, Create Your Life Series, #199
“I feel like sometimes the support you have in one situation is not the support you’re going to have in another situation, and I think that it depends on what you need but you also need to either know that you need something or know what you need. You may not know what it is that you need, but if you know that you need something you can ask for it, and I’m not afraid to ask, I’m not afraid to be exposed, I’m not afraid to be vulnerable. I think there’s a lot of power in vulnerability, and I am grateful that the champions that surround me, the ones who are rooting for me, the ones who want me to be successful, the ones who comment on my Instagrams, the ones who are praying for me without knowing what’s going on…they’re all part of my community, and whether they want to be or not, they’re in the game with me.” - Molly Jensen, Create Your Life Series, #199
“It’s becoming even more comfortable with people essentially not liking you. Sometimes people’s issues have to do with themselves and don’t necessarily have anything to do with you, and then sometimes might just not be feeling you… I just have to realize and be okay with who I am and how I operate, while also being open to being wrong and doing things differently and accepting feedback.” - Kevin Y. Brown, Create Your Life Series, #199
“If somebody spends the time to tell you what you could be doing better, I think that is them expressing love and expressing that they care, and that it’s my responsibility to take that love and then move differently.” - Kevin Y. Brown, Create Your Life Series, #199