Try new things—that’s not just advice from Sade Brown, it’s how she lives. In this energizing conversation with Dr. Sylvia Morris and Dr. Angela Walker, Sade reflects on how saying “yes” to the unknown has shaped her journey from retail to Johns Hopkins University & Medicine, from daughter to doula, from navigating neurodivergence to nurturing community. She shares how grief led her to birthwork, how her Baltimore roots fuel her fire, and why honoring the past means being brave enough to build a different future. It’s a reminder that detours can be divine, and healing often starts with doing something you’ve never done before.
Music courtesy of Dealer’s Choice Sound Recordings, Inc.
Music artist: djezi
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Zen And The Art Of Power Moves: Lessons From A Yogi And Doula
Working To Create A Life Our Forefathers Deserved
Welcome to Boss Leap. My name is Dr. Sylvia Morris. I’m here with my co-host, Dr. Angela Walker. We are having a wonderful conversation with Sade Brown. Before we get into our conversation, Angela, what do you get to do as opposed to have to do?
I love this concept, which we’ve been talking about recently, and we thought about during our conversation with Sade. It’s been all over social media. This thought process of reframing things can sometimes change your perspective. Having to do something, for me, I translate it as a burden or an extra task that I may not have time or have to make extra time for, versus “get to” is a privilege, or for me, maybe a blessing or something that perhaps I’m taking for granted that someone else doesn’t get to do.
That is powerful. It forces us to move back into gratitude.
For me, the real part of getting to do something is getting to help my mom, as she is an older person in our society who is still vibrant, engaged, completely independent, fiercely independent, and confident, yet she’s older and does need help. She’s not moving as fast. You well know, and a lot of my close friends know, we’re in a different state. I would love to have her here and have been trying to do that for the last several years. She has decided this is what she wants to do.
I’m getting to help her navigate how to maintain her independence. I get to do that. I know that a lot of people in this world don’t get to do that, whether it’s because of a loss of a parent, or maybe it’s a relationship that they don’t get to do this. Reframing it into getting to has lifted a burden off my shoulders because I know that this is a privilege and that I’m trying not to take things personally. I would probably do things differently as a parent of kids than my mom, but she gets to make her own decisions. At any rate, those are the things that come to mind for me. It is the fact that I get to help in this transition. How about for you, Sylvia?
Along the lines of being able to get to do something, our guest, Sade Brown, has lost her mom. My mom has passed. You’re right in being able to get to help your mom as she moves into this part of her life. We also know that old Black people are going to be old Black people. They have definite ideas, Uncle William, if you’re listening, about how they want to live their lives and where they want to live their lives. There’s always that balance between what they want and what we envision for them.
When I say get to, it does not discount the frustrations. That’s what friends are for, so I can talk to you.
They are, but there are so many things that we get to do. Whether we have the privilege of health and mobility, I get to walk. When I went on my quick morning walk this morning, it’s certainly part of my mindfulness practice, but also my exercise practice, movement practice. There are some mornings I wake up and I think, “It’s too hot. I don’t want to walk.” We are shifting. I want to thank DeAndre Jordan, an NBA player, for posting that on Instagram, talking about, “I get to do something.”
Even in just saying it, it elevates the way I’m thinking about it. It infuses some joy and some gratitude in that conversation, so we get to do this show. There is work behind it. We had some bumps in the road, but we got to do this show. We are quite grateful and blessed. We are thrilled to sit down with Sade Brown. She is a mass communications powerhouse who has steered executive teams, orchestrated high-impact events, and added doula to her resume. We’re talking about holding space, whether that’s in the boardroom, a birthing room, or the messy middle of a big life transition. Grab your coffee, settle in, and let’s hear from Sade Brown.
Sade, welcome to Boss Leap.
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so happy to be here.
You are welcome. We are going to start at the very beginning. Please share with us where you’re from.
I am from Baltimore City in Maryland. I’ve been here my entire life.
You’re from B’more, awesome.
From Retail To Revelation: Sade’s Early Career Lessons
In Baltimore, tell us how your journey began. What was your first job out of school? What was it like growing up?
I’ve been working since I was about fourteen or fifteen. I wouldn’t say it was my first real job, but I started working in a hair salon. At that time, I thought I wanted to be a cosmetologist and quickly realized that wasn’t for me. After I graduated from college, I started working in retail. I stayed in retail for almost ten years. I was an inventory supervisor at American Apparel.
Are they still around?
I’m not sure. I was there for about four years. Retail is quite interesting. You learn a lot about humans. You learn a lot about yourself. That was my first real job.
You’ve had the two that I hear. It sounds like they taught you things about life, the human experience, how people may respond, and how you should get the best out of them, especially in that retail environment. I can only imagine. That’s not what you do now. What did those experiences teach you about what you didn’t want to do?
Thinking on that, it taught me more about what I wanted to do versus what I didn’t want to do. Although it was a stressful environment because you’re working off of people’s demands and you’re working on trying to sell to people, I realized that, as frustrating as it was in the moment, I enjoy people and I enjoy helping people. It’s just that the way in which I want to help people was different. It didn’t align. Once I left that field, it was figuring out, “I know I like helping people, but how do I want to help people? Where does that take me?” I’ve been stumbling along the way, especially in my 20s. Even now, I’m figuring out where I want to be.
Here at Boss Leap, instead of stumbling, we think of them as leaping. You’ve been leaping to different areas to guide you to where you want to be.
I’m going to have to start using that.
UMBC And The Quest For Passion: Sade’s Educational Path
One of my good friends talked about going from one lily pad to the next, and that’s exactly what you have been doing. You went to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Tell us about what you majored in and what you would say to that woman who graduated from UMBC.
I majored in Media and Communication Studies. You’ll see this. I’ll have different plans for each part of my life. At that time, I wanted to go into radio. I wanted to be a radio host.
You do have a good voice. That makes sense.
Thank you. Unfortunately, I don’t want to speak negatively, but I had a family member who discouraged me from going into that field. When I graduated, that’s how I learned in retail because it was so easy to get into until I figured out where I wanted to be. Looking back at that 21-year-old, I would tell her to seek help because I didn’t realize at that time that I was neurodivergent, which is also probably why I took so many leaps here and there trying to figure out where I wanted to be.
I also struggled in school. It wasn’t so much the material but staying focused is challenging for me. I would tell her, “You’re not crazy, seek help, and go back to school.” Being in school, you figure out what your passions are. You learn about yourself. That was a great thing that I experienced throughout my four years in college. Going back to school would have helped me figure it out. Even if I changed majors, you test the water and say, “This works. This doesn’t work.” It probably would have landed where I am now much sooner.
At school, you really figure out your passions and learn about yourself. Share on XIf you can think back to those years and you say, “Seek help,” how do you think that would have looked for you? Where would you have sought it?
Even today, I’m not sure because it wasn’t something that my parents were aware of. It wasn’t anyone in my circle who could say, “Have you thought about this? Did you do this?” Speaking to a therapist might have been a good starting point, trying to figure out my habits, my routines, and my way of thinking, and breaking those things down. That would have helped because eventually that’s how I found out, and also with the help of TikTok.
Tell us about that.
During the pandemic, a lot of us had a lot of downtime. Originally, I wasn’t on TikTok, and then eventually I said, “Why not? I hear about it all the time.” Although your algorithm is personalized to the things that you see, it started showing things about ADHD. “This is my experience. These are my habits. These are my traits.” I kept checking off the boxes like, “I do that. I’ve done this. I’ve experienced this.” I started looking into it myself, trying to read medical articles because I love to do research on my own. I started therapy shortly after, talked to my therapist about it, got tested, and realized, “Yes, I have ADHD.”
ADHD As A Superpower: Embracing Neurodivergence
How do you see your ADHD or your neurodivergence as a superpower?
I hear that a lot. It’s a struggle because it’s like a gift and a curse, honestly, because it does show up in ways that hinder you. Like I said before, sometimes, the motivation is not there. When you are focused, you get so much done. It also helps me be adaptable. I can be in circles of people who are opposite to me. They may have lived across seas and had a different language and economic status. I find a way to connect to people because I’m always looking for those similarities in people. Even in things and processes, I’m always looking at the trends and how I build a process or a connection. That’s probably my biggest superpower with ADHD.
Sometimes the motivation just isn't there, but when you're focused, you get so much done. Share on XI can testify to that. You can be in a room, and you bring us all together. That’s so true.
Can you give us a couple of examples? Number one, let me go back and say, what you brought out was so important. I believe that as a college student, as a high school student, and certainly as we go into our professional lives, it’s nice to have some type of check-in with a mental health professional. I wish that, like insurance covers, if you have insurance and if you have that luxury, your annual physical exam, you would have an annual checkup with a mental health professional.
I think so many young people would be assisted early on. For people who do have a neurodivergence or ADHD, you could identify those things earlier and tend to help them along the way. That being said, can you give us, for our audience who may not be aware, a couple of examples of things that have helped you since you did seek therapy, whether they’re techniques or processes or whatever has helped you along the way?
It’s not one size fits all. Some of the processes that I have adapted sometimes work and sometimes don’t, but definitely, it is having a journal. Many of us have a lot of thoughts. We’re always in our heads. You have to have a way to let it out and not keep it in. Always have a journal. Don’t be afraid to make lists. Even if you don’t complete them, create a list every day. Get it out of your head and see it on paper. That truly does help.
Many of us are always in our heads, so you have to have a way to let your thoughts out and not keep them in. Share on XFitness is super important. You have to at least go for a walk if you don’t want to be in a gym, or maybe that’s not in your budget. Be physically active. That helps with the dopamine and getting all the things that we’re lacking. I would say eat healthy. I feel like these are things that we should be doing anyway, but when you’re on the neurodivergent spectrum, these are things that we need to help us flourish in life.
That is wonderful advice. Thank you so much for sharing.
Certainly, you work with lots of different people. You mentioned you have an international group of people. I’m going to call them some New Yorkers and some Southerners. Can you tell me or share with us how you keep all of those personalities together and on track?
Back to knowing how to connect with people and finding the common ground, we’re far more alike than we are different. Even if it’s not me connecting with the folks that are in the room, I’m trying to find ways in which they can connect. If I know this person has children that are under the age of ten, and this other person who’s from a whole other space and they have kids under ten, that’s something they can relate on. Putting them together, they can have those conversations and build off of that. Although they start talking about family, they can start talking about their job and their work experience. Maybe we can collaborate on something. It’s always finding those little things, no matter how small they are, to connect to the groups of people and have them connect to each other.
Leading With Authenticity: Sade’s Role At Johns Hopkins
Sylvia has the luxury of having worked with you, but I have not. Our audience has not. Can you tell us about what you do?
I am the Assistant Director for the Leadership Fellows Program at Johns Hopkins University. This is an amazing two-year educational program for volunteer leadership. We celebrated our tenth anniversary with Sylvia. I’m glad you could make it. It was so much fun. I’ve been working here for about two years. On our actual anniversary, that was my two-year mark.
I didn’t know that. I thought you’d been there longer than two years. It feels like it.
It does feel like it. We have this two-year program that educates our mostly alum, but also non-alumni, through everything at Johns Hopkins University, like the medical side, science, applied physics, laboratory, arts, and sciences. They get the insider scope of everything that Hopkins has their hands in. Once they’re finished, we plan to have them on a board or a council that’s affiliated with the division.
You’ve supported executive leadership, it sounds like. At this high level of board members, what is your key in terms of communicating at such a high level with, as you mentioned, a diversity of members?
I realized that that was describing that I was selling the program and not myself, but I’m so used to doing that. In communicating, you have to be clear, concise, and authentic. For many of us, especially women and women of color, Black women in particular, we have to switch, code switch, and become this person that was not necessarily who we are. As I’ve gotten older, especially now in my age, I’m leaning more into who I am. I have a Baltimore accent. I might say things a little differently.
I’m not going to switch that because that’s who I am. Being authentic, people feel that. Even in emails and text messages, they can sense who you are. Being who I am, being clear, being concise, and being direct, you get a lot of respect from people in this field. You build relationships because they know who they’re getting is who you are. Who you are is what they get.
When you are authentic, people can sense that even in emails and text messages. So being who you are—being clear, concise, and direct—gets a lot of respect in this field. Share on XIt’s important to have a true Baltimorean in the rooms, especially at Hopkins. It’s important that we draw from the community in which we live, and we get so much from as far as my Hopkins community and Hopkins family. I would be remiss without mentioning Jill, who has been integral to the Fellows Program. The Fellows Program for me was a wonderful opportunity to learn about Hopkins at large.
My narrow focus was on the School of Public Health, but when you realize how many other things Johns Hopkins does and is involved in, it is truly awe-inspiring. The most important thing is the people we’re talking about, not only staff, the faculty and alumni. Sade, thank you so much for your service and for representing the city of Baltimore so well in your capacity at Hopkins.
Thank you. Honestly, I’ve never thought about it like that, but I am very honored to be in this role and to be able to represent my city, especially because we get a bad rep. I’ve lived in many parts of the city. I breathe and bleed Baltimore City. To be able to work at a university that’s also grounded in the city and historical, it comes full circle. I enjoy what I do. It’s such a pleasure.
Most people, when they think of Baltimore, and not me, you get The Wire, you get the Orioles, and you get crab cakes. Tell us something about Baltimore that resonates with you and something that you wish other people knew about.
Baltimore is so creative.
Tupac, right?
Yes. J.W. Smith, Toni Braxton, Sisqó, and Dru Hill.
That’s right.
Not just in music, but also arts, there are so many creative people who create programs for the people of Baltimore, to think outside of the box and want to help people. I’ve befriended so many folks who have taken the initiative to help other creatives or to help the unhoused. It takes a lot to think that and then see it through. A lot of people don’t realize how much talent there is in Baltimore. I’m amazed. I’ll meet folks, and I’m like, “You need to be in LA, Atlanta, or New York.” There are so many amazing people here.
The Art Of Event Planning: Connecting And Resonating With Audiences
A lot of talent and a lot of heart is what I’m hearing. I have to go back to hearing about you from Sylvia. She said, “She has a talent for bringing people together and planning events.” Can you tell us a little bit about your go-to process for planning events and not only logistically making them smooth, but even emotionally resonant to the people that you’re serving?
My method always uses the basics of the who, the what, the when, the why, and the how. When you start with that, you lay the foundation of the event itself. When it comes to the emotional aspect, it is leaning into the why. Why are we here? Why does this matter? This is what we’re working to build to make this event special and important. Looking at the group of fellows that we work with, why is this specific meeting important to them?
If it’s not, how do we make it important to them? How do we find the information that resonates with them, whether it’s work, professional, or personal? I’ve had a lot of experience with fellows who think that they’re coming here to do homework, and then they’ll walk away and say, “You made me think about when I was in undergrad. I see these students, and that was me.” It hits them on all notes. That’s the foundation of a really good event. Even if it’s not this program, events in general, you want the audience, the group that you’re showcasing, to feel connected to the event itself.
You work with lots of different age groups. What do people in my age bracket and Dr. Walker’s age bracket get wrong about women in their 30s? Maybe not “get wrong,” but how can we be better and more collaborative?
What I hear and what I experienced the most is that people in my age group don’t understand the struggles and financial responsibility. Many of us in my age group don’t have kids yet. We don’t have a family, and not to say folks in other age groups don’t experience that as well, but I’ve always felt that, “You don’t know. You don’t understand because you’re X, Y, and Z age. You’re this. You’re that.” We understand a lot more than people realize. We’re just working to create the life that we feel like those before us deserve. Working so hard and being so committed and loyal to a company or a business for 20, 30, or 40 years is not necessarily what we want. We want to be able to live life, enjoy life, and not survive life.
The Doula Calling: A Journey Of Support And Empowerment
I love that idea. I do feel that from your generation and respect it. Thank you for sharing that. Sylvia, I’m going to jump in. I do have a question that’s near and dear to my heart because I understand that you have recently received your doula certification. Is that correct?
Yes and no.
I’m curious how you got inspired. Tell us.
I just finished my training, but I am in the midst of the certification. There are various steps that I have to take in order to complete the certification, including partaking in births, at least three births. My younger self, when I was maybe ten or eleven, for some reason, was always infatuated by pregnancy, seeing women pregnant, babies, and going through such education in school, which I don’t think they have anymore. Having sex education exposed me to that process.
I remember there was a birthing video where the mother was giving birth. Kids are going to be kids and laugh or get squeamish. I was glued to the TV. I found something that excited me. Seeing the mother, the birthing parent, be supported and seeing the obstetricians lead the charge and having them facilitate the room, it’s something that I aspired to do. As you go through teenage years and college, you fumble around a little bit.
Coming back to the pandemic, I realized I’m not happy where I am. I need to do something that gets me excited every day. I started looking into doula programs and started looking into midwifery. That’s where I felt like I was going to be aligned again. This is when I was working at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. I eventually transitioned from there and landed at Johns Hopkins University. In this role, I do enjoy it, but that ache of being a doula, being in those rooms, was still there. I finally took the leap and took the training. It’s still pretty brand new for me.
The certification will come. The experiences will come because the desire that’s in your heart is what I heard. I know Sylvia has told me. Has anything surprised you so far about the process, whether it’s personally or professionally?
Yes. Personally, it was surprising, especially the group that I did the training with, how different the backgrounds of people were, and the purposes of why they were there. I was looking at my purpose of being there and realizing how many people are like me and wanting to help. That blew me away. I don’t know why that blew me away, but it did. On a professional level, it is the amount of networking that has to happen before you can build a brand and a clientele. There are a lot of birthing people, but how do they know who you are, and how do you build their trust? It’s starting from the ground up. It’s like, “This is more than I expected.”
Has your doula training changed how you see yourself as a woman?
It has, but in a way that’s making me more confident. I realized that I can be very assertive. That’s needed in those situations. Leaning into my voice of advocacy is important as a doula. That’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. There have been situations where I have, but now going into this field, I am realizing this is the role I’m going to play. I need to lean into it as much as possible instead of feeling, “Should I say something? Should I be the one?” I feel like I can be my full self in that aspect.
You are clearly in a season of evolution here. That is what Boss Leap is all about. It’s taking those leaps and hopefully following your heart, your dreams, and your calling. I’m sure all the things will fall in place as you continue to move forward. In that vein, what do you feel like is pulling you forward right now? What’s motivating you? What is keeping you fired up?
I would say age.
That’s real.
It is not that I don’t have much time, but I don’t want to waste time. My mom unfortunately passed a few years ago. Ever since her passing, I realized you can’t waste time. This is something you’re interested in. Even if it doesn’t last long, try it. Just do it. I am getting older. I don’t want to live a life full of regrets. I don’t want to be in the last stages of my life, looking back and saying, “Why didn’t I do what I wanted to do?” It’s pushing me. As scary as it is, I love it because I need that excitement. I need that push. With ADHD, I need that push to keep me going.
I’m much older than you, but I can relate to what you’re saying, time and age.
Unstuck And Unafraid: Sade’s Advice For Navigating Life’s Journeys
You have time, though. What would you say to someone who is on a journey and realizes, “I’m not exactly where I would like to be at this moment.”? What would you say to encourage them to hopefully get unstuck?
Try new things. It doesn’t have to be a goal or a passion. Maybe you want to throw darts. You’ve never thrown darts before. Maybe you want to play pool, and you have a friend who can teach you how to play pool. Creating that spark again of wanting to try and seek other things helped me get unstuck doing things that may have scared me or never thought I would do. Maybe go rock climbing. Once you finish that thing that was so new, you build the excitement, and you say, “What else can I do? What else should I try?” It keeps building, so try new things.
I love that. That’s part of continually growing and trying to identify those things. That is beautiful. Thank you.
Replenishing The Well: Practices For Mental And Emotional Well-being
Whether you are in the boardroom or the birthing room, certainly, you hold space for lots of people. How do you refill your cup?
I struggle with that every day. The things that help keep me grounded are breathing and starting with the basics, focusing on my breath. If there have been moments where there’s so much coming in my direction, I will sit still at my desk or I will take a walk, sit in my car, and breathe, connect to the breath. Following that, I practice yoga. I try to keep a routine of yoga. It helps the body and the mind, and also connects the breath again. Exercising has done a lot for my mental stability and my emotional well-being. All the things that build up the stresses of work, you release them in working out and exercising.
Do you have a favorite exercise or movement practice that you’d like to share?
Yes, I have two. I’m into weightlifting. I love squats. I always imagine myself pushing the weight away from my shoulders, all the weight of the world, pushing it away. With yoga, I enjoy the child’s pose.
Me, too. That is my favorite pose.
I have lower back issues, so it’s good for stretching out your lower back. It’s also restful and peaceful. It’s exactly what it says, child’s pose. You feel like, “I can connect back to myself in that pose.”
Sade, you’re in your 30s. I’m curious. From what I envision, for women your age, it is aerobic and weights. When did you get introduced to yoga and a mindful type of behavior? I envision it more as you get more enlightened and you get older, but I do find that it has been introduced a lot to the younger generations, which I’m happy to hear. What was it like for you? How were you introduced?
Just fumbling around. My friends noticed that I would do all these stretches. I didn’t know it was yoga. I was doing yoga poses. I would stretch and move around because at the time, I was a runner. I was running 5Ks. I did a half-marathon. Stretching is essential. My mother passed away shortly after that. That was my grieving technique. That was my way of grieving the loss of my mother. A friend of mine who noticed that I used to move a lot said, “You should do yoga training. You should look into this,” so I did. I’m a certified yogi.
You left that out of the whole equation here.
What was a grieving process led to a career field, because I still teach, but part-time. It’s been amazing how far I’ve gotten without having my mother because of yoga.
Kundalini or Vinyasa, what type of yoga, may I ask?
It is primarily Vinyasa.
Tell us what that means.
Vinyasa is led by the breath. You’re doing consistent poses of flow following the breath. Every movement is a breath, either in or out. It could be a little fast-paced, but it’s beginner-friendly and all levels friendly.
Just in my head, always dreaming of things. Can you envision incorporating some of this in your doula practice? From experience, being a person who has given birth, but also as an OB, I can see how that would be valuable to patients in terms of alleviating stress, alleviating pain, and guiding them through the whole pregnancy. You have an added benefit. Don’t leave that out of your equation when people are asking.
I would like to be certified for prenatal yoga, to be more knowledgeable about how to move pregnant bodies. Even before that, the breathwork and being aware of your body, I could still implement those things throughout my doula practice. The goal is to build all these things together.
That also differentiates you as a doula. That’s important. It is fantastic.
I do have another area that I’m curious about because you are certainly in love with Baltimore, and that is where you were born, raised, and worked. Do you envision anywhere else that you’d like to move, live, or visit?
Yes. I am planning my escape. I love Baltimore, but I am a traveler. I love to experience the world. I’ve always seen myself somewhere in Africa. I’m not sure exactly where, or somewhere in the Caribbean. I want to be in spaces where, to say it bluntly, I want to see myself in every part of the place that I’m in. I also want to learn more about other cultures and other languages. In the future, most certainly, we’ll want to move.
When you go to Accra, I’m a huge fan of Ghana. We definitely will talk. I think you’d like it.
Thank you.
You are welcome. Sade Brown, we at Boss Leap thank you for sharing so many pearls with us. We welcome you back, as your doula and your prenatal yoga journey continue.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you. We appreciate you sharing and being so open to all of your experiences and things that our audience can relate to. We are so grateful to have you. Until we meet again, may you be well.
Thank you.
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Reflecting On Sade’s Journey: Key Takeaways And Pearls Of Wisdom
That was a fantastic conversation with Sade Brown.
That was so wonderful. She had so many pearls of wisdom that we can share. I don’t know about you, Sylvia, but this is the one that landed for me. I certainly will not be quoting this because I would completely mess it up. In terms of her generation and developing and creating the lives that they deserve, she wants to create the life that our ancestors deserved. I love that concept.
It was our ancestors’ wildest dream.
I love that concept of not apologizing for trying to make these changes, maybe moving from job to job, which is not necessarily the traditional route that certainly our parents did, or even when we were coming out of school, creating lives of joy. It is in the vein of, “I’m doing this because, number one, I recognize that my ancestors worked very hard for me to get to this point. It’s something that they would have deserved to have.”
I like that idea. Something that came up in the conversation, I don’t know that I’d say it’s a pearl, but it was interesting. Maybe something for us to talk about in the future was not apologizing and not doing so much code switching. She’s a native Baltimorean. With her accent, the way she says things, code switching is not anything unfamiliar to a Black woman or a Black person. It’s natural. We grew up in one situation, talking one way and the other.
Not everybody, but a lot of us know and have done that. It’s part of who we are. There’s an interesting conversation that’s going on about whether we need to do that or to what extent we need to do that. I’m not here to debate it. I thought it was interesting, particularly because she had a mindset around it. I love that. How about you?
What she led with was being authentic. However it is that you are going to move, you’re going to move with authenticity. I love the fact that she is from the city of Baltimore and that she works for Johns Hopkins. It’s important that people from the city of Baltimore are integrated within the university system, and place helps to determine who we are. We get to shape the places in which we work.
The other thing that I wanted to make sure that we brought up is Jill Paulson, who was the creator of the Fellows Program. The Fellows Program at Johns Hopkins helps to develop volunteer leaders. I wouldn’t have had the exposure to Hopkins if it weren’t for Jill. I’m on an advisory board as well because of Jill. I wanted to make sure that we gave her her flowers.
Get your shout-out, girl. With that, that’s a wrap with Sade Brown. Certainly, if her story spoke to you, hit follow, share it with your people, subscribe on YouTube, and leave us a review. Until next time, keep leaping and trust the magic behind the scenes. Until we meet again, may you be well.
May you be well.
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About Sade Brown
Sade Brown is the Assistant Director of Leadership Programs at Johns Hopkins University & Medicine, where she plans and implements the high-level volunteer leadership initiative that connects alumni and partners to the university’s mission. Known for her ability to build relationships, manage complex programs, and navigate institutional dynamics, Sade plays a key role in strengthening Johns Hopkins’ philanthropic and volunteer leadership networks.
With over a decade of experience across major academic and healthcare institutions, Sade brings deep expertise in program management, stakeholder engagement, and high-impact event planning. Prior to her current role, she held positions at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Hospital, supporting executive leadership, board management, and mission- driven programming. Her earlier work at Johns Hopkins Hospital and in the private sector honed her skills in operations, relationship building, and communications, skills she now brings to bear in a leadership capacity.
Sade holds a Bachelor of Arts in Media and Communication Studies from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she developed a strong foundation in strategic messaging, media literacy, and cultural analysis, insights that continue to shape how she approaches leadership and institutional storytelling. A natural connector and thoughtful problem-solver, she thrives at the intersection of purpose, planning, and people; always working to create experiences that are both impactful and inclusive.
Reflecting her passion for care, advocacy, and community, Sade completed her doula training in June 2025 and plans to certify by the end of September; continuing her lifelong commitment to supporting others through pivotal life experiences.