Early at The Key, our small team started ongoing work with LaKita Williams of CoCreate Work and Jadah Sellner of Lead with Love to build a set of Agreements that serve as the scaffolding on which we build. One Agreement is to “Celebrate: recognize and reflect on every success, professional and personal, big or small”.
To honor that Agreement, and following La’Kita’s leadership in honoring National Black Business Month, I’d like to shine the spotlight on the Black-owned founders, clients, and business partners who have enhanced The Key:
CoCreate Work’s Leadership & Culture Consultancy has made an extraordinary impact on The Key’s organizational design and company culture, and continues to be instrumental in helping us integrate the vision for this agency, from strengths-based team building to more equitable and transparent reviews.
Our Business & Finance Manager Shamese Campbell of General Ledger Group took us to a whole new level, and has been essential as the pandemic, new tax codes and a market correction keep changing the game.
Our DEIB consultants measured impact and built strategies that help us evolve and tell a new story - Dominique Hollis of We360 and Danielle Jankins Henry of Dream Life Out Loud.
We celebrate the Black-owned businesses on our client roster*:
- Jessica Murrey and Wicked Saints Studios (more soon)
- Nikolas Woods of Hohm, delivering much-needed rest with on-demand sleep pods
- Matt Johnson when he built Refraction
Some critical stats LaKita shared in her own LinkedIn post re: the state of US Black-owned business:
- There are more than 2m Black-owned businesses in the US.
- The most popular category is healthcare
- 17% of Black women are in the process of starting or running new businesses, compared to just 10% of white women, and 15% of white men
- Black-owned businesses employ approximately 920k people
And the realities for many Black-owned businesses:
- Owners receive less business financing, less often, and at higher rates
- Businesses owned by Black women earn significantly less than businesses run by other women
- 58% of Black business owners said their business’s financial health was “at risk” or “distressed” during the pandemic
- Just 4% of startups are founded by Black women
While we celebrate, we also recognize that our work is just beginning.
While you’re here, a few other business owners we love and admire:
Julia Collins, Taylor Jay, Capital B, Juvia's Place, Harlem Capital, Demetrius Curry, Naza Shelley, Megan Gray
* ask us about our preferred pricing model that helps rebalance funding $
** Stats from Fundera & Harvard Business Review
