Copyright Essence
There’s never been a day where I see a Rich Little Broke Girls video on my #fyp (for you page, for the non-social media savvy) and I don’t stop and engage. But long before the days of our favorite Black girl podcast, Kimberly Ndubizu (or as Kim Bizu, as we all know and love her) spent five years answering phone calls at 11 PM, writing up memos on command, and keeping her phone perpetually face-up, just in case her boss needed something. It was exhausting, demanding, and exactly like The Devil Wears Prada, minus the Chanel boots. But it was also a masterclass in power, persistence, and what it actually takes to bend the world to your will when you’re a woman who refuses to wait for permission. “I came here to really define my womanhood,” Ndubizu says of her move to New York. “I watched Devil Wears Prada, and something inside of me said, ‘I want to be in the fashion industry.’ I just felt like if I could work for really interesting, powerful women, I could learn a thing or two from them.” Born into a Nigerian matriarchal family, Ndubizu was raised with the belief that women should be independent and always preserve their freedom of choice, regardless of who they marry or what they do. That foundation would become critical as she navigated the high-stakes world of fashion, media, and philanthropy, while working behind the scenes for award-winning journalists and high-profile executives. If you know anything about coming from any of these industries, then you know that the education was likely priceless, even if the hours were brutal. “There is an art to the follow-up,” she explains, recalling how a well-timed email or strategic check-in could transform a missed opportunity into a closed deal. “There’s also an art of turning a no into a not right now. I think a lot of times, when people get a no, they just retreat. But I saw that instead of retreating, you can really zero in on when.” But after five years of watching other women wield power, Ndubizu hit a ceiling that had nothing to do with her ability. “I was never going to fit this traditional corporate mold,” she admits. “I didn’t feel like I could use the best of what I had to offer the world in a corporate setting, working under someone.” So she created her own path. At 25, when half her friends ran off to marry well and the other half were hell-bent on climbing the corporate ladder, Ndubizu found herself in the middle, unsure whether to pursue a boyfriend or a business plan. Spoiler alert for the rest of this article: the business plan won and Rich Little Broke Girls was born. What started as a passion project between corporate meetings has evolved into something much bigger. With over 300,000 followers and thousands of women engaging across New York, LA, and London, Rich Little Broke Girls has become a cultural community for women navigating the impossible expectations of modern womanhood. “I think Rich Little Broke Girls really resonates because it’s honest,” Ndubizu says. “There are so many women that are living at the intersection of competing expectations. Be the perfect partner, excel in your career, start a family, look flawless, build wealth, find love—it is really, really, really hard. I think what we’re learning is to not subscribe to this having it all… this myth and just owning the season that you’re in.” Which it’s safe to say that that quiet shift—from chasing everything to choosing intentionally—would become the foundation of Rich Little Broke Girls. The community thrives both online and through intimate in-person experiences. Unlike traditional networking events or large-scale conferences (though we need those types of spaces for us too), Ndubizu has created three signature event series: Take Care Wine Night, Girls Out-of-Office (a three-day girls’ weekend), and The Dinner Club. Each is intentionally small, capping at around 50 women. “There’s nothing like having 50 women in a space and they’re genuinely going to get to know each other,” she explains. “So many of the women that have come to our events have left as friends, have become business partners, have traveled the world together.” But the journey to building Rich Little Broke Girls into a full-time venture wasn’t just about business strategy and instead required serious internal work. “Entrepreneurship is the most spiritual journey that I have ever been on,” she reflects. She’s had to untangle her worth from outcomes, learning that whether a launch succeeds or fails, it doesn’t define her value. She journals constantly, writes manifestos for different moods, and faces herself daily. Like many founders before (and a gazillion after her), the transition wasn’t been easy, but it’s been necessary. “It was either I was going to make that shift or I was going to have to go back and be someone else’s assistant,” she says candidly. “Either I was going to have discipline or I was going to work for someone that would ensure that I was disciplined.” Looking ahead, Ndubizu envisions as a lasting cultural platform that exists across storytelling, conversation, and shared experience whether through podcasts, TikTok, Instagram, or in-person gatherings. Her focus is less on scale and more on building a space where women can define ambition and identity on their own terms. “My hope is always that the next generation of women, they don’t feel like they have to shrink to fit an old mold,” she says. “It’s really for the woman that is figuring it out.”
