It’s easy to focus on Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong’s striking ensembles when you first meet her. But you’ll quickly learn there are many layers to this writer turned communicator turned producer. The charming and witty first-generation Ghanaian-American, who was born in Sarasota, Florida, has enjoyed a globetrotting career that has taken her from agricultural research in Nigeria to a storytelling fellowship in Oakland, California, and to the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge. Through her travels, Gyimah-Brempong has created a personal style that brings together whimsical thrift-store finds, New Look- inspired silhouettes, bold jewelry and vibrant Ankara prints (also called wax print) she discovered while in West Africa. “I believe in dressing to amuse myself,” she says. “I love the idea of being intentionally put together but to look as though you could show up anywhere in the world.”

Tuning In
Gyimah-Brempong moved to Seattle from Oakland last year to become a producer of KUOW-FM’s midday program The Record, from which she’s embraced lessons learned from on-air guests. “Almost every guest changes my perspective or behavior,” she says. “I recycle differently because of Recology CleanScapes’ Kevin Kelly, I see Metro drivers differently because of Nathan Vass, and I have learned so much about Washington state from Tod Marshall and Claudia Castro Luna,” she says, referring to the incoming and outgoing state poet laureates respectively. Another consequence of moving here? “I have learned to dress more for comfort.” But you might still see her in a dress and cowboy boots on her way to the airport.