Amanda Johnson, Marketing Consulting
Vision + Inspiration
More than a consultant: Amanda Johnson is a manifesto on resilience, reinvention and the power of human connection.
by Christine Yarde
When I first met Amanda Johnson, we had a good, old-fashioned cry. She was so open and vulnerable with me during our conversation that I couldn’t help but be moved. Her story sounded so familiar: a Black woman charging full speed toward the pinnacle of her career, only to find there would be no pot of gold waiting for her at the end of the rainbow, or so she thought. It was as though she knew what had been happening in my life; it felt like kismet. A week prior, I had been let go from a company that I dedicated myself to for almost 8 years, with nothing more than a “thank you” and “good luck.” Meeting Amanda was like the silver lining to a dark cloud hanging over my head for days. Hearing how she reinvented herself through her consultancy, Cupcakes + Broccoli, gave me hope that I could answer the questions swirling in my head: “Where do I go now?” and “What’s next for me?” What dawned on me after that first meeting was that I was seeking release, and so was Amanda. She was ready to tell her story.
Once we met in person, Amanda and I became fast friends. She was beaming about her latest project: a relaunch for her friend Monique Kofsky’s clean beauty brand, Butter & Lye. The eco-friendly, Brooklyn-based business is redefining what it means to have healthy skin. The pair, long-lost Cornell University classmates, began working on the brand after discovering they lived in the same Brooklyn neighborhood. In true Amanda fashion, she had grand plans for elevating the brand’s identity. From designing and developing the updated website to assembling a paid advertising and email marketing team, Amanda left no element up to chance. She also produced a brand video for Monique, the biochemist of 10 years, telling her unique story. Amanda was on fire with passion for the work that she loved. She shared, “I'm proud of that work because this is someone [Monique] who has a thoughtful brand, a thoughtful approach, and she's selling consumables, right? She's selling soap, but her story is so much more than that. So through video content, advertising, rebranding of her packaging, and her website, I've been able to convince her to be more transparent about the things going on in her life that would connect to potential consumers.”
That’s Amanda’s superpower: connecting with people. Whether it’s on a business call, in a boardroom, through one-on-one connections with friends, or in capturing a target audience, she’s passionate about reaching people through authenticity.
I had the chance to sit down with Monique, who shared how Amanda is helping her develop a more people-centric brand. “Instead of focusing just on what my brand decisions and my business decisions do for the environment, I'm now focusing on what my business decisions do for people. I’m very excited about the partnerships Amanda is helping me set up with different organizations in New York City. We're doing a bar-for-bar program, where for every bar [of soap] a customer purchases, we're giving a bar back to a person in need.”
Monique Kofsky, Founder + CEO of Butter + Lye
“She has the same level of care, the same level of dedication that I would expect from myself. And that’s where she stands out.”
Monique is just one of many clients who have experienced the impact of Amanda’s supportive leadership. Vanessa Tiongson, Chief Marketing Officer at Upstream, a leading advocate for the plastic reuse movement in the US & Canada, recalled how Amanda assisted her as they worked together to create the “Reusies.” It was the organization's first virtual award show to honor champions of the plastic reuse movement—Amanda and Vanessa bonded deeply. “I was going through a lot of personal issues at the time; my father had passed away, and with Amanda, it felt like we'd been friends for years. She invests in connections and understands pain points. She was always about, ‘How can I take things off your plate so that you don't have to worry about it?’”
What distinguishes Cupcakes + Broccoli from other consultancy services is Amanda’s tailored approach to working with each brand. Amanda gave me some insight into how she approaches each project, “For every single client that I have, there is a bespoke kind of relationship with them because every single client is different, every single client needs different things from me.” She utilizes all the tools in her arsenal — her industrial engineering degree, MBA, background in broadcast journalism, and twenty years of experience—to help brands realize their potential. Through her consultancy, Cupcakes + Broccoli, she equips emerging entrepreneurs and CEOs with the tools to turn their dreams into reality.
Vanessa Tiongson, Chief Marketing Officer
“She invests in connections and understands pain points. She was always about, ‘How can I take things off your plate so that you don’t have to worry about it?”
The name "Cupcakes + Broccoli" captures the essence of Amanda's approach: The "Cupcakes" represents her creativity, love for culture, and her drive to always know what's trending. The "Broccoli" represents her analytical mind and thorough examination of processes. Together, they form a sweet and savory balance.
But what inspired me most about Amanda’s story was not her consultancy; she's an expert doing what experts do best. I was truly captivated by the journey that brought her to this point. I was so curious: why did she choose marketing in the first place? It all came back to her love of connecting with people. Probably to the surprise of most people who know her today, Amanda’s kind heart was not always appreciated. She shared with me, “I had no friends. I was bullied in high school. I did not enjoy grade school at all. I spent a lot of my life wishing I had friendships and not having them.” But what she did have was the audiovisual club. It’s where she discovered her passion for interviewing, writing scripts, and telling stories. She recalled “When I was in college, studying engineering, I knew that I didn't want to be a full-throttled engineer. And I knew that in high school, the one thing that I loved to do was the audio-visual club. So I went to graduate school and studied broadcast journalism, following this passion to kind of do what I had really enjoyed in high school.” And when she got her first job at NBC, Amanda felt like she belonged. She was part of a team where she was reaching people and connecting. It afforded her a sense of belonging. And Amanda worked her way up the ladder with diligence.
Amanda Johnson
“What I do is I take the vision that you have for your brand, and I translate it into tactics that will actually give you ROI.”
Fast forward about ten years, and Amanda is VP of Marketing at Here Media, the largest media company centering on the LGBTQ+ community. Alongside her team, she produced seven-figure experiential marketing events for companies like American Express and Lexus, just to name a few. Her crowning achievement at Here Media was the 2016 Out 100 Awards.
Then Executive Vice President of Group Publishing at Here Media, Joe Landry, shared his favorite moment working with Amanda on the 2016 Out 100 Awards when we spoke. “She's [Amanda] super focused on details. She doesn't take her eye off the ball for one second, making sure that everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be.” He continued, “So, we set up for Out 100, and there was a champagne glass tower on this table. People started to come in and somebody tipped one of the champagne glasses, and the whole tower of champagne glasses slowly started to fall. I had this panicked look on my face, and she's like, ‘Mm-mm. Nothing we can do now.’ And I was like, oh my God, it's going to happen. There's nothing we can do but sweep up the glass. The panic left my face. I just loved how cool she was at that moment. That encapsulates her. She does everything she can and then what's going to happen is going to happen.”
Joe Valentino, VP of Corporate Sales at Equal Pride, a former colleague of Amanda’s at Here Media, gave me some insight into what made Amanda so effective. “She has a very keen knack for diagnosing a brand’s DNA. She does the research, whether it's McDonald's, Lexus, a pharmaceutical company, or a travel company.” Joe was someone who trusted Amanda professionally. He trusted her instinct, her work ethic, and her talent for commanding a room. He watched Amanda flourish in the role firsthand. “She's able to pivot. If we're going this way and she's seeing that the room is not going that way, she will stop, she will pivot, and she will go where you want her to take you in order to secure the buy. She's a closer.”
Joe Valentino, Vice President of Sales
“She has a very keen knack for diagnosing a brand’s DNA. She does the research, whether it's McDonald's, Lexus, a pharmaceutical company, or a travel company.”
Amidst her accomplishments, it left me wondering, as a woman of color navigating a white male-dominated world, what it took to own the spaces she was in with that level of confidence. Her former employee at Here Media, John McCourt, now VP of Social Impact at Weber-Shandwick, put it into perspective, “She was one of the few POCs (people of color) working at this company. She was one of the few women in a position of leadership. I have a greater awareness and appreciation for Amanda being able to continue to strive for our department and be very successful in that position.”
“She was like the mother bear of the department—defended her team and made sure we got the proper credit and support.”
— John McCourt, Senior Vice President of Social Impact
Yet, as any true heroine’s story would have it, adversity stopped her in her tracks.
Amanda landed her dream job as Global Vice President of Digital Marketing. It was the culmination of years of hard work and dedication. However, her dream quickly turned into a nightmare as she faced workplace aggression and constant undermining of her authority as a woman of color. The once-confident executive became a shell of herself, a feeling familiar to anyone who has endured a toxic work environment. Putting on a happy face to get through the day and struggling to find motivation became emotionally taxing. Then she was abruptly fired.
Refusing to accept defeat, Amanda stood her ground and fought for her reputation by suing the company for racial discrimination in 2018. Despite her efforts, she did not win the case and was devastated, feeling like she had lost everything. During our conversation at Peaches, a landmark Brooklyn restaurant, she cried freely as she shared with me, “I was in a place where I couldn't get a corporate job. I had to document every time I applied for a job because of the court case. [I applied to] At least 700 jobs.” Amanda continued, “I never thought that after getting a Cornell education, a Syracuse education, an MBA from NYU, one of the best MBA schools in the world, I would be in a place where I couldn’t get a corporate job.”
“I got punched in the face and knocked to the canvas. And the view from the canvas, you see so much more than when you're standing up and thinking that you're big.”
The experience was harrowing, to say the least; she was all but exiled from Corporate America. To add insult to injury, many of the people who had followed her through her career also abandoned her. In her own words, “I got punched in the face and knocked to the canvas. And the view from the canvas, you see so much more than when you're standing up and thinking that you're big. What's also great about the canvas is, as you work to get up, you notice the people who are helping you up.” She likened her life in 2018 to the infamous scene in Avengers: Infinity War when Thanos snapped his fingers, people vanished. “Half the people I knew disappeared. Yes. Half the people I knew disappeared.”
Uncertain about her next steps, there was one friend she knew she could always depend on Stacy-Ann White. After she lost what she thought was her dream job, Stacy became her safe place. Amanda shared, “She [Stacy-Ann] came and sat with me. She didn't say anything. She just made me tea and soup,” Amanda recalled. “She was just there, so I didn't feel so alone.” Tragically, Stacy-Ann lost a long battle with cancer shortly after. Reflecting on their friendship, Amanda said, “She was amazing, but one of the things that I loved about her is that she was somebody who never said no. She always lived her life saying yes and doing adventurous things!”
She continued, “I was in the hospital with her the night before she passed away. I think losing her and witnessing someone my age dying like that made me appreciate the fragility of life. It also made me value time.” It was at that moment Amanda realized there was no time left to be wasted. Following in the footsteps of her dear friend, she said yes to her true purpose—using her experience to help small businesses and emerging entrepreneurs realize their potential. Thus, Cupcakes + Broccoli was born.
The most profound lesson I learned from Amanda Johnson's journey is its relatability. Often, what we perceive as our defining achievements, do not truly represent who we are. They’re merely a beautiful surface concealing our deeper purpose and the reasons behind our experiences and circumstances. When life challenges us to delve beneath that surface, our only option is to embrace the journey and uncover our inner strength. Cupcakes + Broccoli is not just a consultancy; it embodies Amanda's quest to answer the fundamental question: "What is my purpose?"
In the words of Andres Toro, a former colleague of Amanda’s at Here Media,”' I can't wait to see where she goes next.”
Christine Yarde is a lifestyle, hair and beauty writer based in New York, NY. @chrissical