[4] A graduate of King's College, Cambridge, Badoe worked as a civil servant at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ghana,[4] before beginning her career in journalism as a trainee at the BBC.

She has taught in Spain and Jamaica and has worked as a producer and director making documentaries for the main television channels in Britain.

[6] Among her credits are: Black and White (1987), an investigation into race and racism in Bristol, using hidden video cameras for BBC1; I Want Your Sex (1991), an arts documentary exploring images and myths surrounding black sexuality in Western art, literature, film and photography, for Channel 4; and the six-part series Voluntary Service Overseas for ITV in 2002.

[7] Reviewing True Murder in The Africa Report, Zagba Oyortey described it as "a rich complex of wonder, loss, friendship and prescience from the viewpoint of Ajuba, an African girl transposed from her idyllic home in Ghana to a boarding school in rural England after the collapse of her parents’ marriage.

[12][13] In 2016, Badoe participated in the conference-festival "Telling Our Stories of Home: Exploring and Celebrating Changing African and Africa-Diaspora Communities" in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.