DeAndre Brown Left The Corporate World For Social Media And Now, He’s Revealing His Biggest Brand Deal Payout Yet

DeAndre Brown’s decision to walk away from the corporate world is still paying off.

The Morehouse College grad entered corporate life after securing internships at top investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. He went on to land a full-time role at Citigroup in 2021 as a global consumer banking analyst, according to information on his LinkedIn.

Brown began leaning into social media, and what would place him on the map was creating content under the moniker “The Corporate Baddie,” which resonated most with Gen Z, who make up the majority of his following. As AFROTECH™ previously told you, his content explores how Gen Z is enforcing work boundaries and prioritizing mental health.

At the time of this writing, Brown has garnered 1.1 million followers and 76.4 million likes on TikTok. On Instagram he has pooled 368,000 followers.

“I am so blessed to be in this position,” Brown reflected in a previous interview with AFROTECH™. “When I started creating the videos, I didn’t realize that I would reach so many people and they would relate to the content that I put out. It just really means a lot to me that I am able to connect to such an audience.”

Brown has since left the corporate world to be a full-time content creator. While speaking on the “Aft The Record” podcast to cohosts Mona Kosar Abdi and Jeannette Reyes, he admitted that the end goal was never to be confined to a single company.  His official exit was prompted after a reality check following a conversation with HR.

“I had a meeting with HR and I had knew the policies when it came to posting online line at work and I was staying within those policies,” he said on the podcast. “There was really nothing anyone could say. They did question me once because I was starting to get interviews. I just couldn’t mention where I was working at. So then I did one interview and I didn’t say where I worked, but I guess they went on my LinkedIn and found it and they incorporated it in the interview … They never said I would get fired. It started with like ‘We love it, you’re doing so good.’ … That was the time when I was like I really had to sit and think, ‘Do I want to pull back?'”

He told “Aft The Record” cohosts that his mother also encouraged him to ensure he would be able to “survive” if he took the leap into content creation. Brown’s journey appears to remain fruitful. One of his earliest deals, which was with LinkedIn, paid him nearly $6,000 monthly to create videos for their page, he said on the podcast.

His biggest brand deal was with CVS, which he claims paid nearly $80,000. He made his official transition to being a full-time content creator in 2022.

“I would get little smaller deals too. So it had ended up totaling up to like six figures within a month … When that conversation happened with HR I was like ‘Okay maybe I can just take the leap at this point,” Brown mentioned on the “Aft The Record” podcast.