In this episode of From Chains to Links, Ify sits down with innovation support leaders LaKisha Greenwade, Alisha Gordon, and Dr. LaTanya White, who each invests in ensuring entrepreneurs are equipped with the tools to thrive. Together, they explore how we need to reimagine wealth creation, see the wealth is rest and village, and unpack the obstacles standing in our way. It’s a rich, powerful conversation about the state of Black entrepreneurship and the real case studies of economic empowerment and building with community.
I am excited about this episode because this is the baddie girl entrepreneur episode. That was a cat but I’m really excited to be joined here by three amazing entrepreneurs, and innovator support organizers. Also just like within their own right change agents are trying to make sure that none of us get left behind. I’m going to make sure I move over to my esteemed conversation lists. Why don’t you all start with LaTanya? Why don’t you introduce yourself and then we’ll get into the conversation?
Thank you for having me. I’m Dr. LaTanya White, the Founder and CEO of Concept Creative Group, where we use these evidence-based frameworks that really pushed the conversation about Black wealth beyond generational wealth and exposing entrepreneurs’ support organizations, innovator support organizations, and the founders that they serve about these three generations of control of wealth that we need to be embedded into the process. This research has been requested by the US Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship is in the congressional record. The Department of Interior is reviewing the research for inclusion in the African American Civil Rights Network because our story and our lives and our identity is just as Valuable as any story that we’re being told. I’m excited to talk.
In short, don’t play with you. Don’t mess with her. Another one not to be messed with is LaKisha.
Everyone, I’m LaKisha Greenwade, Founder and CEO of Wearable Tech Ventures. We’re a global ecosystem dedicated to the development and promotion of wearable technology and we support entrepreneurs in four continents. When people say, “What’s wearable technology?” We cover everything from medical technology, sports tech, fashion tech, gaming, VR, etc. All of that in our ecosystem and we’re working to support and fund 100 wearable tech startups by 2030.
Also not to be played with. To my left, to probably everyone else’s right, Reverend Alisha, please.
Alisha Gordon, you don’t have to call me Reverend ever, unless I’m in a pulpit. Alisha Gordon, founder and executive director of The Current Project. We’re a nonprofit organization that focuses on the economic mobility of Black single mothers, thinking about how the intersection of data research, policy advocacy, and programming really bring Black single mothers to a place of economic thriving. I’m really excited to be here and have this conversation with you all.
The Intersection Of Black Identity And Innovation
I’m going to be throwing out a lot of black stuff for the next 15, 20 minutes. That includes innovation. Oftentimes when innovation is discussed with us, it’s separated and segregated from blackness. Wanted to just get your thoughts about that. Innovation, blackness, creation. What do we need to do to own that and not see it as something separate? I know for me, one thing that I try to remember is that like, we have been innovating and we have also been innovating at times where we were in bondage. Those are just some of my thoughts. What comes up for you all? Anybody can jump in.
I know when we started, I actually surveyed a number of my friends, professional, non-professional, educated, non-educated and I said, “When you think of black folks doing great things what did they do?” I asked that question for a reason and none of them said inventors and one of the things that we’re doing here at Wearable Tech Ventures is we’re developing a new generation of inventors, of investors, of innovators. That’s our fabric, that’s who we are so we’re taking back that ownership. That’s our fabric.
I see wearable ventures. I see it.
I’m really intrigued by your question because in my mind to be black is to be innovative. There’s no separation between the two but I do think that the divide between those things are the direct result of us a lack of remembering and a lack about storytelling. Like what are the stories that we have told generationally? We hear this all the time about how Black culture is often talked about from the beginning of slavery, and we’re like, child, we were here way before that. I think there’s something to be said about how as entrepreneurs and how as leaders that we are always putting that language forward, that our very being is innovative.
In this space, in this country, in the work that we’re doing. Thinking about innovation as the re-imagining of what it means to be human, what it means to do this work. All of our work is not just about the bottom line, it’s about how do we transform the lives of people, how do we transform the lives, and how do we help those people innovate around the issues that are concerning them. I really appreciate the question because I hadn’t thought about it even being a line of divide, but I can see how it is.
Wait a minute, you’re remembering Black Panther, Queen Angela. Remember who you are. That’s wearable technology all in Black Panther, too.
No, seriously. LaTanya, want to bring you in because as Alisha was talking about storytelling and you were talking about how some of your work is archived in these spaces of power and in these spaces of decision-making, it feels like I would love for our stories to just be told and therefore be remembered for generations to come. There is also something about archiving and being like really intentional about that.
Importance Of Storytelling And Archiving Black History
To your question, the first thing that comes to mind for me is 150 years ago, the failure of the Freedmen’s Bank in 1874. You mean to tell me that these newly freed Black people had three million dollars in the 1800s for the federal government to lose and yet here we are. If that’s not resourcefulness and creativity and innovation that needs to be told right and needs to be like current generations the next generation we need to be informed of the power that our ancestors held to still thrive and somehow here we are today even as byproducts of that.
Thinking about storytelling and archiving, we can even get down to when we’re talking about wealth transfer and heirs’ property. If no one in the family knows whose name is on the deed to grandma’s house that’s a simple story that we can keep telling in our families that’s going to keep our wealth out of probate out of the public court system. It allows for us to move that wealth down a generational chain in a way that becomes normal. We understand that wealth is a part of our identity and that we don’t have to go seeking or being validated because it’s being told and held by our own ancestors and elders in the family.
I don’t know about you all, but I’m feeling something in my body because I’m struggling a bit. When I hear the word resourcefulness, I also sometimes hear the word resiliency. There’s a power in resiliency because it is a response. There is also a struggle with resiliency because I argue that resiliency is not a state that we should be perpetually in all the time.
Lord have mercy.
Would you like to bring the Lord and the mercy and the space, what’s going on in your body? As you’re talking, I’m feeling this like, why are they always losing our money? We got to rebuild. Why do they always bomb in our towns and then we got to rebuild? The story that we normalize is the rebuilding and what we have to be resilient through is the original destruction and the bombing and the breakage to begin with. It’s like, I know for me, I can’t dwell in that space but there is also something about, like if we’re going to tell a story, are we telling the full story of these cycles?
Challenges Of Resiliency And The Cost Of Rebuilding
As we’re getting and moving forward towards a more digital entrepreneurial reality, what are the ways that the stories of the ways we were harmed can also be a part of how we build anew, not just participating in the newness of the new thing? You’re reminding us that we have always been a part of the new thing even when there were chains. Always but there’s also been this other side, ugly side of it as well. I don’t know. There were a lot of mm’s and I’m feeling the breathing. I know you have thoughts on the resiliency thing.
I love what you said about we are not meant to remain in a state of resiliency. There’s a nervous system reaction that happens that we are constantly in. When we talk about as entrepreneurial leaders, the level of exhaustion just off the bat from just running the business. Also when you carrying this story and this narrative that is ancestral, that is resilient, that is rebounding, there is a level of molecular cellular exhaustion that comes with doing this type of work for the reasons for which we do it.
I’m picking up on the same thing as you is that like, so much of this work is an embodiment of who we are. Is literally the embodiment of who we are as leaders as Black vote. Also, how do we begin to measure these things out in a way that it begins to reframe and reimagine how we’re doing the work so that we actually can live long enough to see the work. Do what it is that it intends to do because being in a constant state of resilience and fighting and fighting all the time is exhausting and wearing on the body. What’s the happy medium? I don’t really have an answer for that though.
I’m thinking two different things here. One, yes, we have that story of often having to rebuild, but I think in full transparency, we’ve had scenarios where we’ve had to rebuild because we weren’t supportive of our own selves in certain times. Now we’re at a place where awareness and education is incredibly important in us redefining what support looks like for one another so that that constant rebuilding doesn’t have to happen.
While you were saying that, I was thinking about Fawn Weaver’s story or her new book, this is not a plug, but hey Fawn. Love and Whiskey and how she had read a story which happened by accident because what was supposed to be a PR event with Jack Daniels ended up wrong in the newspaper but she found it in Singapore and invested in that and turned it into a brand so that we could all hear the story today. I share that to say it’s important that we’re mindful of how we need to continue to uplift one another and continue to reinvest so that the story does not become hidden.
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems And Access To Capital
I felt that, and I feel like there’s also, thank goodness for God, universe creator interventions because these things that end up being to the natural eye, seen as mistakes, are usually the portals that we take advantage of. That’s one thing that I love about being Black because to Alisha’s point, I don’t see it as separate from like creative or innovative. That is an innovative way to respond to what others would have either missed or just seen as a mistake.
I want to revisit all of your childhood for a second. I saw all your eyes. Want to hear a little bit, we’re all entrepreneurs, and not maybe not just as a child, but in your pre-entrepreneurial state. What made that you were an entrepreneur or you were going to pursue that you’re entrepreneur? Feel free to tap into a nice juicy mistake or a learning lesson. I don’t want to call it a failure, but like what are some of the parts of your journey that you participated in that you’re like, “I think of it differently now.”
I would love. Girl, go.
She’s heard this before, but when I reflect on my entrepreneurial journey, I literally can pinpoint it to my thirteenth birthday. My birthday is January 2nd, right around holidays, my mom worked at the busiest post office in Miami. I never spent my birthday with my mom but on my thirteenth birthday, I remember in my infinite teenage wisdom, being so resentful. I was so upset that she wasn’t there. I had this narrative that I would never work somewhere that made me choose between my family and work.
My thought, the narrative that I had was that my mom was choosing to work. She was single mom. She was choosing to not be there with me day to day. It wasn’t until I was today years old as I was conducting this research on the black wealth experience and really understanding why we got to this place. Like how in my family were we at this place? That was when I learned that she hadn’t had a choice. That my grandmother, a single mom, raising nine kids, hadn’t had a choice.
Her mother before her hadn’t had a choice. On one wavelength, I almost maybe manifested my entrepreneurial journey, because I never did. Even when I was working on campus, I had so much autonomy. Entrepreneurial, but I had said at thirteen that I would never work somewhere that made me choose while at the same time having this resentment towards a fate and a path that my mom had no control over.
Education And Skill Development For Economic Empowerment
Being deeply humbled, and having much more respect for her lived experience and the lived experience of my elders and ancestors that came before her. The way that I engage with my daughter is so much differently. I’m here to tell you as a single mom. I’m here to tell you, Sparrow, that this is what we are experiencing right now. This is the work that’s being done so that you understand the path that you come from, the lineage that you come from, but also your power and your control to change that narrative.
That is good. Thank you for sharing that and acknowledging those feelings as a teenager. I was going to say, my entrepreneurial endeavor came when I was the top cookie seller of my Brownie troupe. I was only like 1 or 2 little black girls in a troupe. I knew in kindergarten that I had to be wealthy and the only Black girl in my kindergarten class. I didn’t go to preschool. My grandfather watched me, but I learned to count, playing dominoes, and playing cards.
I had nap time. He told me his nursery rhyme stories that he knew when he was growing up. I had a schedule, and you watched the stories, but I knew when it was Martin Luther King Day. Those experiences because I didn’t have the track of preschool going into kindergarten, I had to recognize what I did bring to the table. I think that forced me so that I could have those honors and be that top cookie seller and know that I could shine in those environments where there was nobody like me, where there were no key chains that had my name on it back then. There was no identity.
No identity. That’s that. I feel like for me, seeing this whole thing, looking at our moms in a different way or being getting the opportunity to look at our moms in a different way is like sitting with me. I think a lot of why I went into entrepreneurship and I’ve worked in many different places, been working since I was eleven, a byproduct of just like first generation, reality. A lot of it was informed by looking at my mom and feeling like I don’t want to. I don’t want to be run down like that.
Not even fully like appreciating until I was getting older, how that literally was like the boat and the vehicle for me to even be here. Bernice, you a gem. I was foolish. I will also say that one of the things that I feel like has been a constant struggle is not trying to meet my full potential because I was afraid of failure. Like the combination of poverty and also seeing somebody overworked is like, I have all these amazing ideas but I can’t go too far. It’s that Icarus thing, like if I go too far, I’m going to fall really hard towards the ground.
There’s nobody here to catch me. I’m also the oldest of five. I have to be a model of things that have to work. In some ways I have to justify these systems that I don’t even believe in because I need other people to at least believe that they can work a system to get enough to survive. I had to have the mindset of banking on myself first before I started being entrepreneurial. I think there’s also something that I’m reflecting on now that I think I need a little bit more time to think about that most of us were entrepreneurial.
I’ll speak for myself. I was entrepreneurial at times when I didn’t even say I was an entrepreneur. I think for me, it’s also reflecting on things like, what are the things that I both enjoyed doing and made money from that didn’t even feel like work? That’s also, I think, part of our birthright, but sometimes we don’t invest in those spaces because they were called hobbies or they weren’t the thing that was supposed to make us money or make us dignified. Those are the things that actually bring me joy. I’m finding that more play in my work is actually okay.
That’s really good. There’s one other thing when we talk about this journey and being an entrepreneur support other entrepreneurs, how difficult it can be. I don’t think we amplify the real stories when people finally tell them, like your Byron Allen, how he nearly lost his house 7 or 10 times, and there’s other entrepreneurs that nearly went bankrupt multiple times. If we could equate those stories to what we’re going through, we won’t feel so bad because I feel like we’re taught to feel bad if we have one failure, whereas there’s some other folks that had multiple opportunities and may have been given multi-million dollar rounds and given additional chances to fail after they lost that.
That brings me to this next conversation about how business is becoming so much more complex, digitally, but also policy-wise, in a whole range of ways. You each serve as innovator support organizations. You are supporting people like part of your business is to make sure other people succeed. When you think of the things that are the most missing right now, if you were to think of the 1 or 2 things that you feel like we need this in spades like we need this without a doubt.
What are some of the tangible and intangible things? I’m going to take one off the table because I know everybody’s going to be like money. Yes, we need money. I don’t want to say are there other things, but in addition to the capital or maybe the ways in which we are getting that money, what are some things that come to your mind through the lens of like you all are seeing entrepreneurs every day grinding, trying to chase or acquire this American dream?
Data In Nonprofits And Marginalized Groups
I’m in the nonprofit space. Our model for acquiring money is much different. We talk about philanthropy and all those things. One of the things that I am learning and our organization is about the role that data plays, especially when you are working with and for and alongside marginalized groups who have a very embedded narrative, and story, and experience in this country. Much of the philanthropic dollars and philanthropic storytelling is framed by old antiquated racist data findings. The data is not being disaggregated enough to really get to the core of things.
One of the things at our organization, while programming is such a big part, I find that I’m trying to force myself to do more programming because that’s where the philanthropic dollars are. Which says a lot about, if you can produce these particular numbers, if you can show the level of impact, you can often make folks feel good about the safer complex they have about getting all these black single mothers out of poverty. That is the thing in which people want to have fun and storytell around. The fact that a matter is, and when I’m getting the courage to really lean into programming is great.
There are a lot of organizations who do programming for this particular group. Where is the new, fresh, updated data that shapes and drives the conversations in a 21st century digital age in a way in which that is connecting the lived experiences of the women that we work with and the people that we serve? All of the holistic ways in which we want to make sure they get into a place of thriving, the data driving things like policy conversations driving. How other organizations are thinking about how they’re spending their philanthropic dollars.
How we’re talking about particular stories. All of that has to be shaped by a data mining that is really critical to how I think the rest of the 21st century looks like when you’re talking about entrepreneurship and innovation, in particular around nonprofit spaces because in a nonprofit space. It’s so much about the storytelling, the heartstrings. I’m like, that makes you feel good, but the data says this. That’s something that as an organization that I am finding the courage to really anchor ourselves in and say the data might not be as sexy as a story tell or the programmatic piece but it’s such a critical part that I think is a necessary pivot for us to make sure that we put some real investment in.
I like that. There’s two quick things. One, transform the vetting process so that we could get to yes.
The vetting pro can flush that a little bit.
Oftentimes, people don’t want to give you a chance. They want to see. They want you to model it. Go out there and do things with no money and see how you do, “Let me see you 2 years, 3 years.” You’re like gasping for air. The other thing is I think we need a movement to ensure that innovation Economies or innovation organizations are led by true innovators and not bureaucratic paper pushers.
I’d love to tie in.
I had to sit up, child, hold on.
On Alisha’s point about the data. I like to elevate this idea of qualitative data. Storytelling. A new word, if you aren’t familiar, word of the day is phenomenology.
I love it.
I love phenomenology.
Phenomenology.
Love it. The study of the lived experience of a group of people who are undergoing or participating in some phenomenon. The research that I do is the phenomenological study of first-generation Black Wealth Creators, because the story, the narrative, the lived experience has been so far removed from the vetting process, from the evaluation process. I remember, I taught entrepreneurship at an HBCU for eleven years and rapid prototyping, customer discovery, blue ocean strategy, all the things that literally students would sit in the classroom and I could see their eyes glazing over.
Why lady like, “What are you talking about?” Where is my story in this thing? How do you want me to go out here and ask a hundred strangers to give me feedback on my idea that’s very half-baked when culturally, ancestrally, I ain’t supposed to step out of this door until it’s perfect? I literally, I had an assignment built into my course. They had to do three rounds of rapid prototyping worth fifteen points. I had students that would say, “I’ll just take the B willing to give up fifteen points from their grade because what are you asking me to do?”
This is done. It don’t feel right. I’m not familiar with this. It’s too risky. When I began to understand that the lived experience of a group of people informs, or at least it should inform, how we teach, how we train, how we fundraise, how we build, how we innovate, then I had to change everything about the way I was teaching. Ultimately I had to leave the classroom because the walls are closing in on me. When we discount the value of the lived experience, we’re doing such a disservice to the innovators and communities that we serve.
That makes a big difference. Like I think about when I stepped out and didn’t have much money and I come from organizations that are all about excellence and you have to put something out there and it may not be as polished as you would like. What that does to your own psyche and then how you have to say, “I really just didn’t have it but I had to do what I could do to get it out there.” That’s hard.
Do you think that the fear of not only at times failure, but also the fact that there’s this pressure for us to be so polished when we come out. We’re in this space where everyone’s talking about emergent technology, new technology. When we think of AI, crypto, blockchain. I’m wondering if I can merge those two and then the lack of data that we bring to like layman’s terms so that everyone can understand how to interpret it and use it in their own lives.
If some of that is playing in the divide that we’re seeing in both the uptake of some of these technologies, not even just for like communities that are historically marginalized, but for entrepreneurs that have been in the game for a long time, brick and mortar entrepreneurs that aren’t necessarily taking on these new technologies. I’m wondering or I’m offering that maybe that fear of like I don’t know it well enough, so I’m not going to use it.
Just would love to hear some reflections on like, what are some of maybe the cautions with love that you all would want to share with entrepreneurs that maybe are not weaving these tools into their industries quick enough, which as we know, these things get updates all the time. They’re also moving as folks need to uptake these things. Look, I see you on the tip of your.
Challenges Of Innovation In Marginalized Communities
Let’s just start with this. Let’s start with the real. AI is not complete because you don’t have all the black data. Come on. People are using it, monetizing it, building products, etc. Going to the moon. If these multimillionaires billionaires can do it, why can’t you?
There’s no perfect way to use it.
Get out there and play now. To the point about to your point about the fear and I’m not good enough, that’s such a prime opportunity for this intergenerational transfer of knowledge. We see so many black-owned businesses, not having a successor in place. There’s no succession plan in place. It doesn’t have to be in the family, although we would love for that to be the case. We can get towards building this dynasty, but there still should be an exit strategy, an exit plan, some succession planning. A part of succession planning is the transfer of wealth, the transfer of knowledge, which is a form of wealth. Let me tell you, I’m so tired of learning.
I don’t learn nothing else.
If I have within my network someone who work like you, you lit up. I build the relationship and you get to transfer some of your knowledge into my organization, into my family, my community. I may not need to be as afraid, but I also don’t have to be this new standard bearer. I can look to you. I can model what you’re doing and accept your knowledge and still be great at the thing that I’ve been good at for this long.
The Power Of Truth-Telling And Community Knowledge Sharing
That’s good. It makes me think about the old black church adage that says, “Tell the truth and shame to them.” There’s something that you just said and that has come up a couple of times about being the first and the pressure that comes with that, this desire or need to be polished and how we overthink doing like I overthink putting a graphic on Instagram that I made myself. I’m like, “It’s the girl. Just put it out there.” When we get to a place where we can tell the truth about these experiences as entrepreneurs, and I mean, tell the unadulterated truth, and I love what you said about essentially closing the knowledge gap.
What happens when we tell the truth, we close the knowledge gap for other people and say, “That’s what it took to do that or that’s how challenging it was. Actually, this is the workaround, this red tape that we often get in.” Telling the truth not only frees us up, but it closes the knowledge gap for people because we are in a place in this digital world where things are accelerated. We have to sometimes do things faster and more progressively and all these things.
The only way that we do that and that we keep up with the progression is to tell the truth to each other about what it takes, what it doesn’t take, the things that we’re overthinking about. That is my offering is that as we continue to build this work and do this work together, and I think that’s why the BIA circle is so powerful because you have thousands of people who are at your disposal who can tell you the truth about the experience and not to scare you, not to deter you, but to help you close the knowledge gap and get to where you’re going faster.
I love this concept of truth being the tool that gets manipulated to make us feel ashamed. If I can just dig a little deeper in the church, it’s like, your testimony is oftentimes what brings other people through. Getting around the foolery or the veil of thinking it’s something to be ashamed of, but as a way to share information is actually a way that Black communities have been innovating and progressing, even when things have been held as barriers. As we as we’re wrapping up this really amazing and all of our all of your ancestors are so proud you all like ancestors are shining in this space. There are two things I’m just going to throw these concepts out there and I would love for you all to reflect on it.
The one is like it’s really important for us to remember that innovation is our birthright that we have the right to innovate. Also secondly separately but related, when we talk about Black innovation, it would be wrong for anybody that knows me personally to be remiss of the fact that we are all Black femme folk in this space, that we are all Black and we are all equally Black with different experiences. As you think about not only, I would love to hear your closing thoughts on like, what comes to your mind when you hear the right to innovate and also what are some things that we should also be both proud of and encouraging of each other as Black femmes that are in this space innovating? Anyone can jump in there.
I’m reminded of this social media post where they had men and women at a baby shower, a bridal shower, and they had to get through a hoop, and the men, they did theirs, and the women did it so much faster. I think for women, we need to own our power. Never minimize ourselves because we think differently. We might think more efficiently. In many cases, we are juggling the home, the parents the children, the work supporting our mates, etc. On the on the part of innovation, be who you are. That’s who we are innovators.
I’m really big on language and the phrase you said was the right to innovate. We often treat innovation like it’s a privilege. Like it’s something that, come on. That is something that is bestowed upon you because you come from the right place or the right time or the right family. It is as human a right as water, as housing, as access to food. That really resonates with me and around the language to say a right to innovate.
It is a right that we as Black women, Black femme folk, Black folk from the diaspora that is embodied in our story and in our divine nature. It is not something that you got to perform for, that you got to get a degree for. You know what I mean? Like that you don’t have to continue to learn, to do. It is innately our right to innovate around the issues that we’re often most concerned about, but also the innovation to be in deeper community with one another. How do we use the tools at our disposal to to make that happen? Take us home.
I would love for us to remember that as innovators, as entrepreneurs, what we do is solve problems. What we do beyond that is monetize the solution. If innovation is our birthright, then let’s make sure that we make the connection between wealth and innovation, and then we get to the place where we understand that wealth is our birthright. There’s no need for us to leave anything else on the table.
That’s right.
That’s good.
No crumbs left.
Thank you all, ladies. Can we clap? I can clap.
This is how we do it. Thank you.
We thank you so much for joining us with this conversation. We invite you all to continue the conversation around the right to innovate, but also the right to wealth, the right to community. We invite you to follow us on our social handles, Build with BIA, and visit our website, BlackInnovationAlliance.Com. Thank you.
Important Links
About LaKisha Greenwade
LaKisha Greenwade – better known as Coach L- is an Innovator and wearable tech eco system founder (Wearable Tech Ventures that promotes and develop wearable innovations). After the Baltimore uprising, she created a platform in fashion tech to rebrand the city’s contributions and drive innovation amongst local youth. After self-funding her venture, gaining international notoriety, and receiving many accolades, she expanded the platform to include all wearables. Her goal is to create a space in tech that is diversified through innovative solutions and products yet developed by the traditionally underrepresented population in tech. Her business and leadership tips have been featured in the U.S., China, UAE, UK, and Brazil. Her honors include Maryland Leading Women Honoree, Baltimore City Innovator of the Year, Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship Startup Mentor Coach of the Year nominee, two-time 40 under 40 Honoree, a 3x SXSW presenter, featured Forbes.com and Boss Babe contributor, Black Enterprise Tech Connext Fellow, Founder Gym Tech Founder Graduate, and Best Selling Author of Rejection to Reward and 40 Days to Unshakable SelfConfidence. LaKisha resides in Maryland and is a graduate of The Ohio State University (BS), University of Maryland (MBA), and attended Johns Hopkins University.
About Rev. Alisha L. Gordon
Rev. Alisha L. Gordon is an awarded faith leader, preacher, and educator whose work intersects faith, culture, and politics. A native of Decatur, Georgia, Rev. Gordon earned her Bachelor of English from Spelman College and a Masters of Divinity from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University.
Alisha’s published work has been featured in national publications, including The Huffington Post, WGN’s groundbreaking television show, Underground, Emory University, the General Commission on Religion and Race, and the United Methodist Church. In 2016, she received a Presidential Commendation from Dr. Elmira Mangum, president of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida for her contributions to the university as convocation speaker. In 2015, she was the winner of the Candler School of Theology Community Service Award, and a founding member of award-winning CORE, the Candler Centennial Coalition on Racial Equality.
She is the former Executive Minister of Programs at the historic Riverside Church in the City of New York and served as the National Director of Faith-Based outreach for the 2020 Bloomberg Presidential Campaign. Her commitment to the Church is formed and informed by her practical approach to scripture and social justice.
Alisha is ordained in the Baptist tradition by Beloved Community at Emmanuel Baptist Church of Brooklyn, New York.
Alisha currently lives in New York City with her teenage daughter.
About LaTanya White
Dr. LaTanya White, award-winning researcher, TEDx Speaker and founder of Concept Creative Group, has been named one of the 50 Most Powerful MBEs, Advocates and Strategic Resource Partners at the 2024 MEDWeekTM Legacy Awards Gala. Presented every five years, the prestigious recognition celebrates influential leaders in the Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) community who have made significant contributions to economic empowerment, advocacy and strategic partnerships.
“It is truly an honor to be recognized among such an esteemed group of advocates and entrepreneurs, especially because I’m doing work that I was told was impossible. At Concept Creative Group, we are redefining our economic legacies and turning them into engines of empowerment, and it’s driving the systemic change our communities deserve,” said Dr. LaTanya White.
The 2024 MEDWeekTM Legacy Awards Gala took place on Saturday, October 26, 2024 in Miami, FL, where Concept Creative Group was recognized as a Powerful Capital Readiness Provider as a part of the Capital Readiness Program (CRP). The CRP is funded by the Department of Treasury in partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA).
The work that Dr. White does through Concept Creative Group centers on advancing equity by influencing policy, and through entrepreneurship education and strategic development for MBEs. Her efforts have had a transformative impact on over 10,000 socially and economically disadvantaged entrepreneurs through initiatives like the Dynastic WealthTM framework, which emphasizes the importance of legacy-building and sustainable economic advancement for underrepresented communities.
Through her academic and mentorship initiatives, Dr. White has created 50+ transformative learning experiences for students, faculty and staff at HBCUs and MSIs; delivered 40 transformative workshops and keynote speeches on entrepreneurship, racial equity and belonging; led 14 research projects that are informed by real-world entrepreneurial challenges and solutions; and launched the Dynastic Wealth Training Academy to give the families of entrepreneurs access to the blueprint for passing down intergenerational wealth.
Being recognized as one of the 50 Most Powerful MBEs, Advocates and Strategic Resource Partners solidifies Dr. White’s position at the forefront of work being done to drive economic empowerment for underrepresented communities.
