Through Connections, Ebony Flake transformed a technical planning process into an accessible civic conversation about mobility, dignity, opportunity and belonging.
Women of Momentum 2026 Honoree | By Christopher D. Thomas | Publisher, inCity Magazine
Transportation plans are often communicated through maps, corridors, reports and projections.
Ebony Flake began with people.
She listened to residents whose ability to work, receive healthcare, attend school, participate in community life or maintain their independence is shaped by how effectively they can move through their city.
That approach became Connections, the official podcast of goBHM, Birmingham’s community-driven multimodal transportation planning initiative.
Produced in partnership with the Birmingham Department of Transportation and the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority, the series created another way for residents to enter the city’s planning conversation. It connected public infrastructure with the lived experiences of the people that infrastructure is intended to serve.
Flake did not merely document a community-engagement campaign. Through storytelling, she helped build part of its engagement infrastructure.
For that work, and for the creative responsibility she carried behind it, Ebony Flake is recognized as a member of Women of Momentum 2026: The 26.
A Different Way Into the Planning Process
Working with Wilbron Inc. and Kimley-Horn, Flake produced, wrote and hosted Connections. Her responsibility extended well beyond being the voice listeners heard.
She owned the full production cycle, from editorial strategy and research to narrative development, writing and audio mixing.
Across ten installments released between January and June 2026, the series examined transportation through multiple points of human experience.
Listeners heard how mobility affects residents with disabilities, students deciding whether they can build a life in Birmingham, families navigating heavily traveled corridors and people rebuilding their lives after incarceration. Other installments explored walkability, public art, neighborhood connection and the role shared movement can play in creating common ground.
The subjects varied, but the underlying question remained consistent:
What becomes possible, or impossible, because of the way a city moves?
By grounding an institutional planning process in recognizable human experiences, Flake made the conversation more accessible to residents who might never begin by reading a transportation report.
“The Connections podcast was a game changer for the goBHM community engagement campaign. It drove traffic to our website consistently,” said Christina Argo, Deputy Director of Strategic Projects for the City of Birmingham.
Argo added that the series “told the story of how people move through our city with authenticity and heart.”
That outcome represents more than audience visibility. The podcast connected storytelling with a larger civic process, directing attention toward a campaign that invited residents to learn, respond and participate in shaping Birmingham’s transportation future.
Leadership Beyond the Visible Role
The public encountered a finished series. What remained less visible was the coordination, editorial judgment and stewardship required to produce it.
The project involved municipal leaders, transportation agencies, engineers, communications professionals, community organizations and residents with very different experiences.
Flake’s responsibility was to find the human thread capable of connecting them without reducing complex lives to institutional talking points.
She had to determine which details carried meaning, where technical context was necessary and when the most responsible editorial choice was to step back and allow someone’s experience to be heard without interruption.
“I wasn’t simply assembling interviews about transportation,” Flake said. “I was listening for the humanity in them.”
That distinction shaped the series.
Flake was not positioning residents around a predetermined message. She was listening for the moments that revealed how transportation decisions enter people’s lives, sometimes as convenience, sometimes as limitation and sometimes as the difference between access and exclusion.
Her work translated complexity without stripping it of consequence.
Creating Room for Someone Else to Grow
Flake’s leadership also created professional momentum for another emerging storyteller.
She worked closely with Jehme Pruitt, Wilbron’s communications coordinator and a Birmingham native whose knowledge of the city helped the production reach people with a broad range of transportation experiences.
Pruitt helped source voices that included commuters, artists, residents experiencing homelessness and people confronting accessibility barriers.
Flake recognized that Pruitt’s local fluency and creative instincts could contribute more than logistical support. She created room for her to take on greater responsibility, explore ideas and develop her production skills.
Pruitt ultimately earned a field producer credit.
The decision reflects how Flake understands leadership. She believes a person’s current role may represent only a fraction of what that person is capable of becoming.
“I’ve benefited from people who made room for my evolution,” she said. “I want to extend that same freedom and encouragement to others as a leader.”
In creative work, that means allowing collaborators to stretch beyond assigned responsibilities, respectfully challenge ideas and contribute perspectives that improve the final work.
For Flake, leadership is not demonstrated by having every answer. It is demonstrated by creating the conditions in which the strongest answer can emerge.
The People Who Made the Work Possible
Flake is deliberate about recognizing Connections as a collective accomplishment.
Kimley-Horn commissioned the podcast, with project leaders David Samba and Nick Addamo supporting storytelling as a way to broaden civic participation. Wilbron Executive Chairman Brandon Wilson brought Flake into the project, while President and CEO Missy Burchart helped coordinate stakeholders and secure the production resources the series required.
Within the City of Birmingham, Christina Argo facilitated collaboration among the project partners. Chief of Public Infrastructure James Fowler helped connect residents’ individual experiences with Birmingham’s broader transportation priorities.
“Beside this ‘Woman of Momentum’ is a remarkable team of people who helped set it all in motion,” Flake said. “I’m honored by the recognition, but the applause belongs to everyone who brought Connections to life.”
By naming those contributions, Flake is not giving away authorship of her own work. She is demonstrating the kind of leadership the project required: building trust across institutions, protecting the integrity of residents’ experiences and ensuring that collaborators could recognize their contributions in the finished series.
When Separate Chapters Begin to Converge
Flake’s path to Connections was not linear.
Before journalism, she spent years in corporate human-resources leadership. She later carried that experience into her work as a C-suite reporter for Business Insider, covering corporate leadership and the changing world of work.
As a contributing writer for ESSENCE, she has reported across business, careers and culture.
Her entrepreneurial journey also included founding Urban Content Studios, a Detroit-based media collective developed during her tenure as an Entrepreneur in Residence with the Ford Foundation.
For years, those experiences could have appeared to represent separate professional chapters. During 2026, Flake began to recognize their convergence.
Connections arrived during a period of personal and professional transition. The media industry was changing, and emerging technology was reshaping how quickly content could be produced and how creative work was valued.
The assignment returned her attention to what cannot be produced through speed alone: curiosity, empathy, lived experience and the ability to recognize something of ourselves in another person’s story.
In telling Birmingham’s transportation stories, Flake reconnected with why she became a storyteller.
“At a time when the value of human storytelling is being renegotiated, the City of Birmingham made an investment in it,” she said. “I’m grateful that investment included me.”
Listening as a Responsibility
Flake’s preparation begins before an interview is scheduled or a recorder is turned on.
She prays for the person she will speak with, for the conversation they are about to have and for the people who will eventually encounter the story. She asks God to help her listen carefully, recognize what matters and create something capable of reaching someone meaningfully.
That practice explains something essential about her work.
She does not approach people merely as sources of information. She sees their experiences as worthy of attention, care and preservation.
In a media environment increasingly influenced by production speed, Flake’s process makes a case for something more deliberate. The value of storytelling is not simply that a story can be produced. Its value rests in how responsibly a life is heard, interpreted and carried forward.
What the Work Set in Motion
Producing Connections helped crystallize a consequential decision for Flake.
After years of telling stories through established media platforms, she chose to invest more intentionally in her own creative voice.
That decision gave new momentum to Human by Ebony Flake, her independent narrative podcast exploring the extraordinary questions contained within ordinary lives.
She now envisions Human growing beyond podcasting into a broader storytelling platform capable of supporting the kinds of creative projects that have always inspired her.
As she moves into 2027, Flake plans to continue developing Human, contributing to ESSENCE, collaborating with Wilbron and creating opportunities for emerging storytellers.
Her momentum is not defined by leaving her previous chapters behind. It is found in recognizing how each one prepared her for the work she is now building.
“Momentum means trusting that every experience, every detour, every chapter is inching you closer to your uniquely assigned destination,” she said.
In 2026, those chapters converged.
Through Connections, Ebony Flake helped Birmingham hear transportation differently. Through her leadership, she created room for residents, collaborators and institutions to hear one another.
And through the work, she made a consequential decision of her own: to trust her creative voice and build what it might make possible next.
Ebony Flake
Journalist & Producer
Independent Media & Storytelling
Recognized for: using human-centered storytelling to connect Birmingham residents with the future of transportation in their city.
About Women of Momentum
Women of Momentum is an annual editorial initiative documenting women whose leadership creates meaningful commercial, institutional, civic and community movement. The 2026 cohort, The 26, recognizes 26 women whose decisions, work and influence produced measurable impact during the year.
Selection and editorial coverage are independent of sponsorship.
Partnership Opportunities
Organizations interested in supporting Women of Momentum 2026 may review partnership opportunities and request a private conversation.
About the Publisher
Christopher D. Thomas is the founder of Women of Momentum, publisher of inCity Magazine, and founder and president of inMMGroup, a private advisory firm working with leaders whose decisions move people, capital and institutions. His work centers on documenting consequential leadership, strengthening institutional narratives and helping leaders make the significance of their work more visible and understood.
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