When Jade Magnus Ogunnaike arrived in Montgomery, Alabama, for a client meeting around Easter, she was tired. Her work requires close attention to American politics, and the opening months of President Donald Trump’s second term felt markedly different from his first. Ogunnaike, a Howard University alumna who began community organizing at 19 and later led major campaigns at Color Of Change, said polarization and inequity had left people worn down. Kamala Harris’ loss had hit her personally, too.
The Elevation Convening Center and Hotel shifted something almost as soon as she walked in. She was struck by works by artists including Jacob Lawrence and Derek Fordjour, and she described the building as “a love letter to the Black American experience.” Over the next few days, she visited the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Sites, including the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the National Monument to Freedom, which is inscribed with 122,000 surnames drawn from the 1870 census. Among them, she found her own family’s name.
“That brought my work close to home in a way I can’t manufacture from my office in Manhattan,” Ogunnaike told Travel Noire. “I spend so much time thinking about the next campaign, the next challenge, the next thing we need to win. Montgomery reminded me that we’re part of a much longer story.”
As president of Soft Power Studio, a creative communications agency working with mission-driven organizations, she sees moments like that as part of a larger case for leaving the office. She says the firm has grown from one client to 25 since she started it, and travel was part of that growth from the beginning.
Getting On The Plane Before The Business Was Big
“A huge part of our business comes through referrals, but I don’t confuse a referral-based business with a passive one,” Ogunnaike said. “No client walks up to my front door and introduces themselves.”
In the firm’s early days, she traveled to Washington, D.C., the Bay Area, Martha’s Vineyard, New Orleans, and Chicago to meet people, learn what they were working on, and make the case for what her company could offer. Some of Soft Power Studio’s most meaningful partnerships, she said, began with conversations on those trips. Ogunnaike began using business travel while Soft Power Studio was still new, making those trips part of how she pursued growth.
“Owning a business is a creative experience, even when the business itself isn’t creative,” she said. “You take the resources you have, your expertise, relationships, and team, and turn them into opportunities that didn’t exist before.”
Once Soft Power Studio wins a project, travel also shapes how the firm delivers it. Its core events team travels across the country, bringing the company’s production expertise while assembling local teams for hands-on support.
“I want the event to be excellent and the local economy to benefit from the work, too,” she said.
Her aim is a national firm with deep relationships and a strong reputation. “I want people to experience our work and immediately start imagining what we could do together,” she said.
Listening To What A City Says Offline
Before any trip, Ogunnaike calls the friends, partners, and collaborators who already know the place. She tells them why she is coming, asks whom she should meet, and finds out where she should eat. The questions keep going after she lands.
“I talk to everybody,” she said. “I want to know who the waitress is watching on TikTok, and I’m going to ask for the cab driver’s restaurant recommendation, and yes, who he voted for.”
Much of Soft Power Studio’s work depends on understanding what people notice, discuss, and trust, and social media only shows part of that picture. “We pay attention to social media, but not everyone shares their political opinions on social media, so I’m listening in person for what’s on people’s minds, where they’re getting information from, and what issues they care about,” she said. That listening feeds everything from the firm’s influencer videos to its design and communications.
Her trips also take her well beyond conference rooms. A serious vintage collector, she makes time to hunt for clothes and books to bring home to her children. In New Orleans, she returns to Neyow’s Creole Cafe; in Miami, she stops at the vintage and luxury resale store Miami Twice; and in Boston, she usually visits Beacon Hill Books & Cafe.
Martha’s Vineyard started as a work trip, too. Her first visit came while she was producing College Board events with a 7-week-old baby, and the logistics baffled her before she reached the island. She remembers wondering why there were so few flights, whether they needed to take a ferry, and why the hotels were full.
Once the family arrived, the island won them over. She still talks about the chamomile and evergreen in the air, a scent the firm is now using for its forthcoming signature candle. What mattered more was “the ease my children can feel when they see other Black children at camp or on the beach,” she said. The family has returned every summer since.
The Cost Of Building A Business In Motion
The travel that helped grow Soft Power Studio has also complicated Ogunnaike’s life at home. At one conference, her team was producing the opening plenary, and she planned to fly in Thursday evening, produce Friday’s panel, and be home for her daughter’s birthday on Saturday morning. About a week before, a potential client asked to meet on Sunday. She flew home after the panel for 12 hours and boarded another flight back for the meeting.
“I closed the deal,” she said. The turnaround left her needing a full day to recover. Although she has support at home, she said she can’t hand off one part of the arrangement. “I can’t outsource my role in my family.”
On the road, where the work can be lonely, she listens almost exclusively to gospel music to stay focused as she moves between responsibilities she takes just as seriously.
“It’s my calling to be the best mother and wife I can be, and it’s also my calling to be the best business owner and boss I can be,” she said.
Her advice to other Black women founders starts with knowing why they are going. “Work travel can be glamorous, but it is still work,” she said. Before booking a conference trip, she recommends deciding what it needs to accomplish, identifying the people worth meeting, contacting them before departure, and asking existing contacts whom else they should know. She also recommends following up when you get home.
She builds rest into that plan as well. “Travel takes energy, and you want to save yours for the highest-impact moments, professionally, personally, or spiritually,” she said. “Every trip has a cost in time and energy, so choose the ones you can turn into a real connection or opportunity.”
Ogunnaike wants Soft Power Studio to do more business in the South and New England. Further afield, at least one destination comes with very specific incentives.
“I’m a serious Francophile,” she said, “so any business that can get me closer to shopping at Antic Tonic and the fish soup at Waly Fay, I’m all for.”
