Brianna Doe

I share tips & stories about job hunting, leadership, and marketing yourself | Demand Gen @ Aion | Creator of This Could've Been an Email

According to my mom, I started writing stories at age 3. Picked up a pencil and never put it down, which explains the book, the business, and my obsession with Google Docs.

Today, I’m the founder of Verbatim, a boutique agency helping brands grow through high-impact influencer marketing, fractional operations, and speaker scouting. We’re also ranked the #1 influencer agency in Phoenix by Influencer Marketing Hub — which is exciting and now lives proudly in my email signature.

I help brands stop blending in, and I help creative professionals &amp; entrepreneurs build careers that align with the life they actually want.

The tl;dr:
↳ Bestselling author of The Unapologetic Professional
↳ Keynote speaker, advisor, and marketer
↳ Helping people rethink work without burning it all down
↳ Host of Stop the Scroll, co-creator of Let Her Cook 🌮👀 

As seen in/at: HubSpot, Harvard, Fast Company, Stanford, CNBC, American Marketing Association, and more.

Outside of work: Big fan of tattoos, cookie-scented candles, and the Oxford comma.

Want to collab or bring me in as a speaker? Send me a note: https://www.briannadoe.com/contact

Director of Demand Generation

Aion is revolutionizing the way businesses manage their finances and fuel growth with our all-in-one modern finance platform. 🚀

People love to say “don't bring politics into work!” As if I could leave my Black womanhood in the parking lot and pick it up after 5 PM. 

I didn't choose to bring politics into my work. Politics showed up in my rates, my resume, my dress code, and my safety. For many of us, our entire careers have been political. 🤷🏽‍♀️ Not by choice, but by design. 

As someone who’s spent years code-switching, trying to blend in, and making myself more palatable, I don’t always get to separate the personal from the professional. Many of us don't get to be “just” entrepreneurs or “just” leaders. We're constantly navigating systems that demand we prove we belong. 

So when someone says “Keep politics out of it,” all I hear is: “Stop making me uncomfortable by reminding me that the system isn’t neutral.”

My work is political because my existence is political. And pretending otherwise isn't professionalism. It's erasure.

Founder & CEO @ Verbatim | In my influencer marketing era and you should be too | Bestselling Author, The Unapologetic Professional | Writer & Host, Stop the Scroll

Everything corporate tried to "fix" about me is now how I make money.

I spent years trying to change the things my managers flagged in performance reviews. I was too quiet. Then I was too direct. I couldn't pick a lane. I didn't speak up enough about my goals. Or I was (gasp!) too bold. 🫠

Honestly, some of the feedback was helpful. I did need to get better at articulating my impact and advocating for myself. But some of it had nothing to do with me. My personality just didn't match the template, or my working style made someone uncomfortable.

The hardest skill I've had to learn is how to tell the difference between "I need to grow" and "I need to go." Those are two very different problems. And confusing them can cost you years and a lot of joy.

But now:

• Too direct → "refreshingly honest"
• Couldn't pick a lane → multipassionate, with multiple income streams
• Too quiet → I listen, observe, and hear what people aren't saying

These weren't flaws. I just hadn't found the right environment yet.

📌 Schedule a consult → breakroombuddha.com/partnership
✉️ partnerships@breakroombuddha.com

My #1 Goal: Disrupting autopilot in education-to-employment systems.

My work lives between the education and employment gap, where people are asked to make life-shaping choices without clear insight into their skills, interests, or how opportunity systems actually work. This gap is where talent is most often misjudged, not because people lack ability, but because systems recognize effort too late.

I build programs, tech products, and measurement frameworks that surface early signals of career intent, enabling regions to reduce talent & job mismatch, strengthen talent pipelines, and plan more responsively. Most recently, I built Scouta, a predictive labor market intelligence tool, that translates career curiosity into actionable regional insight.

I do this work because the future of work isn’t just about jobs, it’s also about, "The Future of Talent," and whether regions learn to see talent early enough to keep it.

~~~
I’ve led large-scale system builds across education, workforce development, and talent pipelines, including:

📌 Architecting and launching a federally backed AI literacy education initiative on track to serve 400,000 learners

📌 Building scalable, AI-enabled career guidance infrastructure through proprietary technology, Scouta and Career CoPilot, now used by classrooms, career counselors, and learners

📌 Designing and leading multi-cohort college and workforce readiness programs for first-generation high school and college students


Across my work, I focus on:

- Helping regions build future-ready talent pipelines
- Translating workforce trends into practical, skills-based readiness
- Designing clear, navigable paths from learning to employment
- Rapidly building and launching programs that work in real-world settings
- Telling clear, evidence-based stories that help communities understand, and invest in talent


💼 Organizations I’ve Worked With: Uber, Warner Bros. Discovery, ACT, CUNY, Google Women Techmakers, and Morning Brew

My Causes:
❤️ Google Women Techmakers Ambassador
❤️ Scholastic Innovation Lab Ambassador

Let’s connect if you’re shaping early-talent pathways, strengthening youth career readiness ecosystems, or rethinking how workforce systems identify and develop talent.
--
In constant pursuit of my Jīva (my living essence) and helping others discover theirs.

Deja White

Tonight was powerful!!

I introduced the girls to engineers during Discovery Lab (Tulsa Children's Museum)'s “Introduce a Girl to an Engineer” Night

 and not just any engineers…

✨ Black Women Engineers!!✨

Happy Black History Month 😁 


But I didn’t stop there, we explored every single discipline of S.T.E.M.

We explored the stories of Black women inventors, scientists, cosmetic chemists, NASA astronauts, mathematicians, and trailblazers across STEM who changed the world.


Here are just a few of the women the girls learned about tonight:

💁🏾‍♀️ Aprille Ericsson
💁🏾‍♀️ Patricia Bath
💁🏾‍♀️ Marie Van Brittan Brown
💁🏾‍♀️ Evelyn Boyd Granville
💁🏾‍♀️ Christine Darden
💁🏾‍♀️ Annie Easley
💁🏾‍♀️ Sarah E. Goode

(Seriously… look them up. 🔎)

And we didn’t just talk about these women, we built, just like they did!

1️⃣I introduced them to Scouta by Breakroom Buddha first to help them explore even more STEM careers that were related to the women they learned about.

THEN...

2️⃣ I exposed them to the “T” in STEM by teaching them how to 'vibe code", and then I showed them their code. And for many, it was their first time ever seeing what real code looks like.

The girls were floored!


I know seeds were planted tonight and I'm so excited to see how the future engineers, inventors, technologists, and innovators will change the world.

~~~~~~~

I’m excited to continue hosting my Scout It & Build It session! If you missed this one tonight, there will be more.


And if you have a class, career day, or upcoming event and want your students to explore vibe coding, AI, and STEM careers in a hands-on way, let’s connect! I’ll bring my session (and the energy), and your students will walk away with something they built themselves.

📌 Déja White 

*All thoughts and programming are my own.

📌 Déja White

Future of Talent Systems Architect | Education-to-Work Readiness | Workforce Intelligence

TODAY is the day, and I just heard all my mentor time blocks are fully booked!!

Excited to meet and chat with everyone today. 😊

📌 Déja White

My 2nd speaking gig of 2026 is locked in, and I'll be at SXSW EDU!!


If you'll happen to be in Austin for SXSW EDU or SXSW, why don't ya stop and come see at my mentor session! 🤩

I'll be chatting with people about:
- Practical AI Literacy for Non-Technical Teams
- Career Pathway Design & Future of Work Strategy
- Experiential Learning & Workforce Readiness Design
- Pilot-to-Scale Strategy in Complex Ecosystems

Or... anything else you want to chat about. I'm happy to chat with students, educators, seasoned pros, executives, etc. All are welcome!

Reserve a spot here: https://lnkd.in/g8rqwKRP

I'll be in Austin for SXSW EDU! If you'll be there, shoot me a message and let's connect IRL.

Learn more about my mentor session here: https://lnkd.in/g8rqwKRP

I'm counting down the hours! Excited for you to hear my thoughts!

Edtech Founder, Startup Advisor, Coach, and Mentor. Writer/Editor of the Online Learning Innovations column. Producer of the CONVERSATIONS WITH GEN Z podcast series.

Buckle up folks... Deja White will be our guest tomorrow on the Conversations with Gen Z podcast.  Already a top voice in the workforce readiness space, Deja will share her thoughts on why storytelling, stacking skills, leading with curiosity while thinking strategically, and using AI are essential tools for young adults as they search for career opportunities. This is a conversation you don't want to miss!
#workforcereadiness #scouta #careercopilot #AI
#ConversationswithGenZ

YOU ARE EXACTLY WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE.




Sorry for screaming, but this took me a while to understand, and I want you to get it quicker than I did. 🥲


For a long time, I dismissed the things that came naturally to me: 

the blend of creative marketing, communications skills, community engagement, tech, web development, and now AI & “vibe coding.” 

Because all of these things feel so easy to me, I assumed they weren’t that valuable.

Then I crossed paths with a parent at an event I hosted a session at and she said something that stuck with me:

"Just because something is easy for you doesn’t mean it’s insignificant."

She said this after I kind of downplayed what I was teaching kids at my booth.


And I immediately snapped out of it. I learned a while ago that the work that you do, especially if it's for money, is supposed to be easy (to you). 

When it feels easy and natural, it usually means it’s where you’re meant to operate.

This mindset shift changed how I see my work. 

We often undervalue our “zone of genius” because we don’t struggle there. We think real value must feel hard, complex, or draining. But the opposite is often true.

Your zone of genius is the space where:
🧠 You move fast without forcing it
🧠 You connect ideas naturally
🧠 Other people see magic where you see “normal”
🧠 Your energy increases instead of drains


The work you do for money should live in this zone most of the time, not occasionally, not as a side thing, but consistently. 

Whatever you do, make sure you:

📌 Teach in that zone.
📌 Build in that zone.
📌 Create in that zone.
📌 Get paid in that zone.
📌 Stay in that zone.

What feels effortless to you is someone else's weakness. Capitalize on that, always!

📌 Déja White 
*All thoughts are my own

chances are... it didn't work out because you're made for more.


I love talking about how our life leaves clues, but we continue to ignore them. 

But those clues never stop coming our way. And sometimes something drastic needs to happen (i.e. rejections, lay offs, etc.) in order for us to WAKE UP.

So, chances are, you had to experience that thing, in that exact way, because you were made for more. Now it's your job to figure out what those clues are leading you to.

I talk more about how to spot your life clues here:https://lnkd.in/gn7jZFmR

Machine Learning Engineer | Real-Time AI Systems | Deploying Production-Ready ML Systems

How I Built a Real-Time Driver Drowsiness Detection System Using Computer Vision
Body:
Driver fatigue is one of the major causes of road accidents.
So I built a real-time drowsiness detection system using computer vision and deep learning.
Here’s how it works:
• Detects face and eyes using OpenCV
• Monitors eye state (open/closed) frame-by-frame
• Triggers an alert when prolonged closure is detected
• Runs in real-time with live webcam inference

Tech Stack:
 PyTorch | OpenCV | YOLO | Real-Time Video Processing

Key Challenge:
Handling lighting variation and false positives during head movement.
This project strengthened my experience in building AI systems that work beyond just notebooks — real-time, deployable solutions.

I’m currently open to ML / Computer Vision roles.

Listen to my episode below!



And then give my tools a try.....

🔍 Scouta (The "Shazam" for Careers): breakroombuddha.com/scouta


💼 Career CoPilot (The On-Demand Career Coach): aicareercopilot.com

Déja White is my guest today on Conversations with Gen Z. To say Deja is a powerhouse is an understatement. She has become a leading voice in the education on workforce readiness space who leads with curiosity but definitely has a strategic plan in place. Deja built out Scouta, a career path explorer tool and Career Copilot, an AI powered tool that helps young adults navigate their job hunt. This is a young woman you want to have on your "watch list".
#edtech #workforcereadiness #Scouta #CareerCopilot
#ConversationswithGenZ
https://lnkd.in/gfWq8PNX

Open video: Deja White interview on youtube.com

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