Check Out Chioma Abakporo’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chioma Abakporo.

Hi Chioma, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My story really begins long before I ever thought of myself as an entrepreneur or full-time content creator. I’m originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I’m also a proud Nigerian-American woman from the Igbo tribe. Growing up between those identities shaped so much of who I am today. I was always creative, outspoken, ambitious, and interested in entertainment, media, fashion, and storytelling, even before I knew exactly what I wanted to do with those interests.

I started my YouTube channel in 2014, at a time when becoming a “content creator” wasn’t necessarily viewed as a traditional career path. I was young, figuring myself out, and using YouTube as a place to express myself and document different parts of my life. As my life changed, my content changed with me. I eventually attended the University of Toledo, where I earned my bachelor’s degree in Communication and Marketing, and I documented portions of my college journey online as well. What started as something creative gradually became something I realized I could build into a real career.

Over the years, my channel continued to grow and evolve. I experimented with different types of content, learned what connected with my audience, and eventually found one of my strongest lanes through commentary. That led to my series, “Chioma Chats,” where I discuss celebrity news, social media conversations, cultural issues, relationships, beauty standards, womanhood, and topics that directly affect Black women. Today, my YouTube community has grown to more than 260,000 subscribers.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned from being online for more than a decade is that longevity requires you to evolve. The internet I started creating content on in 2014 is completely different from the internet we have today. Platforms change, algorithms change, trends change, and audiences change. I’ve had to learn how to grow without losing the parts of myself that made people connect with me in the first place. There have been amazing seasons, slower seasons, moments when I questioned what direction I wanted to take, and plenty of trial and error behind the scenes. I think that experience is a huge part of why I value ownership so much now. I don’t just want to participate in opportunities; I want to create them.

That mindset eventually led me into one of the biggest chapters of my life: Queen Team Models.

Queen Team Models, or QTM, actually began in Toledo, Ohio, at the end of 2020. The idea came about unexpectedly when a friend of mine asked if I could help provide models for a music video he was working on. I reached out to some of the women I knew from college to see if they were interested, and they ultimately declined. But the request stuck with me. It made me realize there could be an opportunity to create something specifically for women who wanted to model and gain experience across different areas of media and entertainment, whether that was runway, photography, music videos, brand work, or other creative projects.

I took that idea and began building Queen Team Models, officially launching the organization in May 2021. From the beginning, I wanted QTM to be more than a place where women were simply booked for modeling opportunities. I wanted to create a community centered around women of color where models could develop their skills, build confidence, gain professional experience, and have a sisterhood behind them while doing it. I continued building QTM in Toledo through 2024 before relocating to Atlanta in March 2025 and bringing the organization with me. Since moving to Atlanta, I’ve been able to enter a much larger creative market and continue expanding QTM through our focus on modeling, movement, mentorship, professional development, and opportunities within fashion, beauty, media, and entertainment.

Building QTM has challenged me in a completely different way from being a content creator. When you’re running an organization, you’re responsible for more than yourself. I’ve had to become a director, mentor, creative director, organizer, marketer, problem solver, and businesswoman all at once. We’ve organized practices, photoshoots, brand collaborations, fashion opportunities, and other experiences that allow our models to develop their portfolios while also becoming part of a community. Watching QTM grow has been extremely rewarding because I’m watching something that once existed only as an idea become a real organization with women who believe in what we’re building.

Atlanta has played a major role in that chapter of my story. This city has such a strong community of Black creatives, entrepreneurs, models, musicians, photographers, designers, and business owners. Being here has encouraged me to think much bigger about what my own brand can eventually become.

My journey has also taken me into pageantry and community work. In 2025, I competed in Miss Diaspora Nigeria USA and earned the title of Miss Diaspora Nigeria Tourism USA 2025. That experience allowed me to connect my Nigerian heritage with another part of my purpose: using media and storytelling to highlight the African diaspora and the next generation.

That passion also inspired my work on “Diaspora Diaries,” a project focused on Nigerian youth and grassroots stories surrounding issues such as food insecurity, gender inequality, mental health, and community development. I believe there is so much more to African and diaspora stories than what is often shown through mainstream media, and I want to continue using my background in communications and my platform to help tell those stories.

Creatively, I’m still expanding as well. Music has always been another part of who I am, and I’m developing my own work as an independent artist under Queen Chioma. I love Afrobeats and Afropop, but I also grew up in America and have my own influences from rap, pop, and hip-hop, so I’m interested in creating music that reflects all of those sides of me. The same way my content has evolved with me, I want my music to represent another part of my story that people may not have seen yet.

When I look at everything I’m doing now—YouTube, Chioma Chats, Queen Team Models, music, community work, and the other projects I’m developing—it may look like several different worlds, but to me they all connect. They are all rooted in storytelling, creativity, representation, and building something of my own.

My journey definitely hasn’t been a straight line. I’ve spent years figuring things out in real time. I’ve experienced disappointment, uncertainty, personal changes, business lessons, creative burnout, and moments when things didn’t happen as quickly as I wanted them to. I’ve also had to learn that being successful in a creative industry requires much more than talent. You have to understand business, branding, marketing, relationships, finances, leadership, and how to keep moving when something doesn’t work the first time.

At 29, I feel like I’m entering a new phase of my career where I’m taking everything I’ve learned over the past decade and turning it into something much bigger. I’m proud of the audience I’ve built, but I’m also excited about becoming more than a personality on a screen. I’m building businesses, creating opportunities for other women, exploring music, telling stories that connect the USA to the African diaspora, and developing projects that I hope can continue growing long after a social media post disappears from someone’s timeline.

I started as a young woman with a camera and something to say. More than a decade later, I still have plenty to say, but now I also have a much clearer understanding of what I want to build with my voice.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Absolutely not. It has definitely not been a smooth road.

When it comes to YouTube, one of my biggest challenges has been learning how to build a sustainable career on a platform that is constantly changing. Trends come and go, algorithms change, audiences shift, and remaining relevant in the content creator space takes a lot of work. There have been times when I felt like my channel should be bigger, my views should be higher, or my income should reflect the amount of work I was putting in.

When content creation is also how you make a living, it can become very easy to attach your emotions to numbers. You start thinking about how many views you need, how often you need to post, what your channel needs to look like to attract sponsors, and whether a video performed well enough financially. There have been periods when that pressure affected me mentally and emotionally and eventually led to burnout. It is difficult to remain creative when you are creating from a place of constantly trying to reach a number or meet a financial goal.

Over time, I’ve had to learn not to measure the value of what I do solely by analytics. Numbers are important in this industry, and I would never pretend that they aren’t, but they don’t tell the entire story. I’ve had people tell me that something I said in a video helped them make a decision, see themselves differently, leave a situation, laugh during a difficult period, or feel understood. You can’t always put a number on that kind of impact. Learning that has helped me develop a healthier relationship with being a creator and remember why I started creating in the first place.

Queen Team Models has taught me an entirely different set of lessons.

When I first started QTM, I thought my primary job would be directing. I thought I would teach the models, organize practices, create opportunities, plan events and photoshoots, tell everyone where they needed to be and when they needed to be there, and we would go from there. I learned very quickly that when you are managing a business that involves people, you are also managing all of the different circumstances those people bring with them.

I was working with women from completely different backgrounds. Some were college students or graduates, some had never attended college, some were mothers, some had transportation or childcare challenges, some were financially stable and others were not. Some had never modeled before and QTM was their first opportunity to participate in a professional photoshoot, runway show, music video, or other production. That experience also made me recognize some of the privileges I had in my own life. College had put me around a lot of people who were generally working toward a similar goal, but running QTM introduced me to women whose day-to-day realities could be completely different from mine.

I had to learn that leadership required much more empathy, patience and problem-solving than I initially expected. If someone didn’t have transportation to an opportunity, I had to decide whether I could help find a solution or whether she couldn’t participate. If someone was going through something personally and it affected her attitude or reliability, I had to think about how that affected the rest of the team. I found myself wearing the hats of director, mentor, teacher, organizer, mediator and sometimes even problem solver.

Another challenge was managing expectations. Social media can make success look extremely fast. Someone sees a model in a campaign, an influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers, or an artist having a breakout moment, but they don’t see the years of work that happened before that moment. I’ve been building my own platform for more than a decade, so I understand firsthand how long it can take.

With QTM, I encountered women who were excited about the idea of being selected, being photographed, appearing in a music video, gaining followers or being able to say they were a model. But once the excitement wore off and it became time to practice, communicate, arrive on time, prepare, remain consistent and fulfill commitments, I started seeing the difference between wanting the image of something and wanting to do the work required to become good at it.

That experience completely changed the way I operate QTM today.

I am much more intentional about who I select. Appearance is part of modeling, of course, but it is nowhere near the only thing I consider. I pay attention to how someone communicates with me, how she presents herself online, what her goals are, whether she seems professional, what she is doing outside of modeling and, most importantly, whether she appears willing to learn and work.

I also make expectations very clear from the beginning. QTM requires a time commitment. You have to communicate. You have to show up. You have to be on time. You have to practice. You have to be willing to receive feedback and continue developing.

So no, the road hasn’t been smooth, but I think the difficult parts have made me a much better creator, entrepreneur and leader. YouTube taught me that numbers will fluctuate and that longevity requires adaptability. QTM taught me that leadership is about people before it is about titles. Both have taught me patience, consistency and the importance of continuing to learn. I’m still figuring things out as I grow, but I think I’m much better equipped today because of everything that didn’t go according to plan.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My work spans digital media, social commentary, modeling and development, entrepreneurship, and entertainment. Most people know me as Queen Chioma through my YouTube platform, where I’ve built a community of more than 250,000 subscribers since I began creating content in 2014. I’m especially known for my commentary series, “Chioma Chats,” where I discuss celebrity and entertainment news, social media conversations, relationships, beauty standards, womanhood, and cultural topics that often directly affect Black women. At the center of my work, I consider myself a storyteller and a builder. I enjoy creating conversations, platforms, and opportunities, particularly for Black women and women of color.

I’m also the founder and director of Queen Team Models, a modeling and development organization for women of color. Through QTM, I help women develop their runway, posing, confidence, professionalism, and portfolios while creating opportunities for them to gain experience through photoshoots, brand collaborations, fashion, beauty, and other media projects. What sets QTM apart is that I don’t believe development begins and ends with appearance. Modeling is a visual industry, but professionalism, communication, reliability, discipline, and confidence are just as important. My goal is to help women become better prepared for whatever opportunity they pursue next.

My work also reflects my Nigerian-American identity. In 2025, I earned the title of Miss Diaspora Nigeria Tourism USA 2025, and I’ve continued exploring ways to connect my Nigerian heritage with storytelling, media, and community work. I’m also expanding creatively into music as Queen Chioma, blending my Nigerian and American influences through Afrobeats, Afropop, rap, and pop. I think that combination of experiences is part of what sets me apart. I’ve studied Communication and Marketing academically, spent more than a decade learning digital media firsthand, built a business, developed talent, directed creative projects, and continued finding new ways to tell stories across different forms of media.

What I’m most proud of is that I’ve continued building while creating opportunities that extend beyond myself. I’m proud of growing an audience of more than 250,000 people, but I’m equally proud when I see a woman through QTM become more confident, participate in her first professional project, or begin building a portfolio she didn’t have before. I don’t necessarily want to be known for doing only one thing. I want to be known for taking the different things I’m passionate about and building something meaningful from them. Whether someone discovers me through Chioma Chats, Queen Team Models, music, or another project, I want the common thread to be creativity, representation, ambition, and creating something that people can take with them.

Any big plans?
For the future, I’m looking forward to continuing to grow and expand my YouTube platform beyond the content people already know me for. A big goal of mine is to introduce a podcast or interview-based segment where I can sit down with interesting people and give them the opportunity to share their stories with my audience. Much of my current content focuses on social commentary, celebrity news, and viral topics, so I would love to add a more human-interest element that explores what everyday people have experienced, overcome, learned, or accomplished. I think there are so many interesting stories that deserve a platform, and interviewing people would allow me to use the audience I’ve built in a new way.

For Queen Team Models, I want to continue expanding our presence in Atlanta while creating opportunities locally, nationally, and eventually internationally. I would love to see QTM booking larger projects within fashion, beauty, entertainment, and the arts, attending more major events, developing relationships with sponsors and brands, and becoming more involved in community service. One of my biggest long-term goals is to develop QTM into a television or streaming series that gives people a behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to develop as a model. People usually see the final photos, runway walks, and glamorous moments, but they don’t see the practices, preparation, setbacks, personal growth, discipline, and time these women put into becoming who they are on the team. I think there is a great story in showing that process.

I’m also looking forward to making the most of the remainder of my reign as Miss Diaspora Nigeria Tourism USA 2025, which I will hold through May 2027. I want to continue expanding my philanthropic work, particularly with children and schools, and I hope to return to Nigeria several times before my reign ends to continue serving and connecting with communities there. Overall, I feel like I’m entering a period where I’m taking everything I’ve already built and thinking bigger about what it can become. I’m excited to grow my platform, create more opportunities for the women of QTM, tell more meaningful stories, and continue using my work to make an impact both here in Atlanta and beyond.

Pricing:

• Queen Team Models membership dues: $50/month
• Brand collaborations, modeling bookings, sponsorships, and other business inquiries: Pricing varies based on the scope and needs of the project.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thequeenchioma/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@QueenChioma
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/queenteammodels/