Inspiring :Uzoamaka Maduka 26-yr-old Editor-In-Chief Makes Forbes’ Top 30 Young Entrepreneurs

Forbes is profiling the brightest under-30 entrepreneurs changing the game in the USA.
From finance to media, music, Hollywood to tech and art, media to food, they are all listed in its annual list.

Of the 34 men and women on the Forbes 30 Under 30 in the Media list, one Nigerian shines bright.
Nigerian-American Uzoamaka Maduka, a co-founder of The American Reader, a monthly journal of literature and criticism, ranks high on the list.

Forbes in its post listing Maduka as one of the top successful entrepreneurs under the age of 30 says: “Maduka is a mix of modern and throwback: A child of Nigerian immigrants and Princeton graduate, she decided to start a literary magazine, in print, at a time when most of her classmates were dreaming of launching hit apps. There’s a daily website, too, and a partnership with Salon.com and helps with digital distribution.”

Ms. Maduka and her executive editor (and on-again, off-again boyfriend), Jac Mullen.

The Guardian, UK, which also recognized her as one of the top successful entrepreneurs in media, in its post says: “When she launched the literary journal, The American Reader, she was rejecting the idea that ‘print is dead.’ The journal has demonstrated how beautifully designed niche print publication can survive alongside digital offerings.”
Maduka, who was said to have co-founded her literary magazine with the aim of bringing alive the reading culture among young people, said “I benefited from being raised always on the edge of something, I’m black, but I’m not African-American. I’m African. I’m Catholic. That sense of constantly being lost in translation allows me to stay marginal in a way.”

According to the New York Observer, Maduka grew up in Columbia, Maryland.  For her, the title The American Reader has something of a personal resonance: she is a member of an intimidating accomplished family. Her father, a Nigerian, is a doctor and her mother is a chemical engineer. She has two older brothers who work in finance, and a sister who worked for the Clinton Foundation’s HIV/Aids Initiative and was the dean of Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy and also got an MBA from Harvard.