Allison McGevna is this week’s guest on the Mompreneurs podcast. By day, the media executive oversees digital content for the largest Black-owned media company in the country. Beyond work, she is a wife, a mother of two, and a prolific writer. On this episode of Mompreneurs, McGevna reflects on her ascent in digital media and shares her keys to success.

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The creative powerhouse has driven historic company growth while amplifying diverse voices.

As SVP of Content at iOne Digital, McGevna leads content and strategy across a suite of digital brands including MadameNoire, HelloBeautiful, HipHopWired, and NewsOne, to name a few. Since stepping into the role in 2020, McGevna has been instrumental in driving record-breaking growth for the company, a testament to her talent for putting forth a vision and achieving tangible results.

“We’ve broken our revenue records every single year for the last four years, which is amazing and very difficult to accomplish in digital media in general, but certainly in digital media over the last couple of years,” she told Mompreneurs host Nancy Redd.

From spearheading the refinement of “digital covers” featuring a high-powered roster of cover stars including Chloe Bailey, Taraji P. Henson, Brian Tyree Henry and more, to overseeing the growth of hit series such as Mompreneurs and Listen To Black Women — the content across the iOne Digital ecosystem is stamped with McGevna’s passion for platforming diverse voices and creating spaces for necessary conversations.

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The creative powerhouse discussed how Listen To Black Women came about. The popular talk show series is just one example of McGevna’s creative process at work, inspired by insights she was hearing from her team. “We talk about our perspectives and what’s happening in the world — whether it’s motherhood, relationships, money — bringing conversations that I’m having with my friends, colleagues, and neighbors, and thinking about how we can turn that into a creative endeavor,” she said. “I’m super proud of the voices that we get to bring to light in that work.”

The busy mom schedules time to pour into her creative side.

A key to McGevna’s success has been making time to stay grounded in all areas of life, allowing her to show up as her best self both at work and at home. As a mom to two young children, she’s well aware of how easy it can be to lose ourselves in the daily cadence of life.

“We are so much to everybody, but we also have to give some time to be ourselves, because otherwise you will lose yourself,” she said. “I’ve been there. Even if you can only get 15 minutes in your day, think about the things that you loved to do before you became a mom. Spend some time doing that and the creativity will follow.”

McGevna and her husband have made this a weekly practice, scheduling “creative nights” in their calendar. They set time during the week, a few hours in the evening, to do something they love — while the other parent is “on duty,” making dinner and caring for the kids. This is time “to sit down and write, or work, or read. It’s time to be ourselves,” said McGevna. “Having those couple of hours to yourself and respecting the other’s time has been a really effective process for us.”

Creative nights yielded a novel and a screenplay.

A writer at heart, McGevna has used this time to pen a screenplay, adapted from her novel, Circle The Flame — and she’s not stopping there. With several screenwriting accolades already under her belt, the next move is getting her work onto screens and in bookstores nationwide.

The daughter of a Grenadian mother and Irish-Catholic father, McGevna drew from her unique cultural identity to produce a story only she could tell. “(Circle The Flame) is a really fun, glamorous adventure project. It’s been getting some great buzz,” she said. “It’s a very me project.”

Now adding screenwriting to her list of creative ventures, McGevna credits motherhood with driving home the importance of embracing discomfort in the unknown. “You have to be comfortable in being able to fail,” she said. “That is something that being a mom will teach you, because you watch these little people learn how to do everything, and you have to be able to encourage them to keep going.”

Catch new episodes of ‘Mompreneurs’ every week.

Every week, we celebrate beautiful Black entrepreneurs who are simultaneously amazing business moguls and awesome moms. We listen to their life stories and inspiring advice. Catch new episodes of Mompreneurs every Monday on MadameNoire’s YouTube channel. Or listen to the podcast online at Urban1Podcasts.com.

The post Mompreneurs: iOne SVP Allison McGevna Talks Breaking Revenue Records And Scheduling Time For Creativity appeared first on MadameNoire.