Navalayo Osembo is Co-Founder and CEO of Enda, a company that is building on Kenya’s reputation as the global leader in distance running. With “Run Kenyan” as its motto, Enda makes running shoes in Kenya, for runners around the world. Navalayo is the first guest we’ve had on from the place of my ancestral heritage - Kenya. She grew up with a military father and a teacher mother, which meant strong themes of discipline and excellence. Combined with her gifts of curiosity, intelligence, and grit, she set out to master accounting, law, and global development. But it was her return to Kenya f ..read more

Jarrett Wright is Founder and CEO of Higher Rewards, a company that offers nonprofits and faith-based organizations the ability to provide their members a self-branded credit card where a percentage of every purchase goes back to the organization.Jarrett is from several generations deep in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jarrett showed drive and ability from an early age. Reading by 2 years old. Doing the family’s grocery shopping at 6. But the pace and structure of school frustrated him. So instead of putting his intellectual horsepower to work in college right away, he started a property develop ..read more

Isaac Lymon is Co-Founder and CEO of Raxplay, a company that enables music artists to perform live real/time concerts via virtual reality. Raxplay puts fans in the front row, VIP, and backstage - all in the comfort of their homes.Isaac was born and raised in Detroit. At an early stage, he felt called to music. But after a taste of the grind artists endure, Isaac gravitated to what made music happen behind the scenes. It was then that he really came to appreciate the power that technology could have on the industry. And like many famous tech entrepreneurs before him, he made the tough call to p ..read more

Khalid David is Founder and CEO of TracFlo, a company with a predictive financial management platform that is empowering America’s contractors.Originally from the Bronx, Khalid was born into a family of tradesmen with a deep connection to his Afro-Caribbean roots. So it’s no surprise that, even with education from Morehouse, Columbia, and MIT, Khalid ended up in the construction industry. And it was those experiences that opened his eyes to the opportunity to better track the dynamic cost changes happening on today’s construction sites. And so TracFlo was born. Khalid is a passionate speaker a ..read more

Patrice Darby Neely, Founder and CEO of GoLogic, a data aggregation and economic development platform helping small businesses accelerate growth and reduce failure, while increasing the capacity and capabilities of the organizations that support them. Patrice spent many years in childcare before starting her first startup, GoNanny, to address the fragmentation of care occurring with the busy schedules of families on the go. Timing wasn’t on her side, unfortunately, as her company fell victim to the whipsaw of the US economy that came with COVID-19. With GoNanny, Patrice had a front-row se ..read more

Roger Roman, Co-Founder of AfriBlocks, the Global Pan-African Freelance Marketplace and Collaboration Platform. They are building THE resource for devs, designers, and virtual assistants. Roger hails from Chicago, and in his home neighborhood there the Roman name is well known. He was pre-ordained to be a lawyer, but Roger took a different path: business. He leveraged his degree from Howard University to immerse in industries as varied as construction, video game development, and eventually marketing. Roger has been spotlighted in The New York Times, Black Enterprise, and VentureBeat ..read more

James Jones, Co-Founder and CEO of Ownors, an AI-driven Fintech platform that helps artists retrieve payouts from streaming services. Ownors isn’t James’ first startup. Inspired by his upbringing, James became an attorney. But he saw the gaps in the system. The fundamental way that legal services are sold and distributed is a straight up disconnect with the vast majority of people who need it. So he and his wife formed Court Buddy, where he became Black Enterprise Entrepreneur of the Year. After successfully fundraising and scaling that business, James was eager to scratch the startup itc ..read more

Melanie Akwule is Founder and CEO of MINWO, a DE&I tech company that connects companies with organizations that have a specific mission to support Black-owned businesses on their path to scaling. Originally from Virginia, Melanie was an NCAA track athlete who did her undergrad at Georgia Tech.She worked and excelled in the corporate world with GE. But it was at the Haas School, Cal Berkeley where she built her startup muscle. She used her time in school to conceptualize and develop MINWOA. Melanie is off to a great start in 2021 completing the Techstars program and gearing up for the ..read more

Daricus Releford is Founder and CEO of StoreCash, a company that provides mobile banking for teens, as well as for unbanked and underbanked adults.Daricus is the twin son of a mom in the military. And as you just heard, he came home one day as a kid to find that his dad had taken everything from the house. Since that fateful event, Daricus has been on an entrepreneurial journey, that's gone from cutting lawns to building a FinTech startup in Silicon valley. Along the way he's had to persevere through college, hustle his first company into getting promotion by Steve Harvey, to landing roles wit ..read more

Black Entrepreneurship & Fundraising in 2021- have we made any progress?In this special episode, we bring you the fireside chat moderated by Dan with Amira Rasool, CEO of The FolkloreDaricus Releford, CEO of StoreCashKwame Boler, CEO of neu, In the session we talked about the state of black entrepreneurship and fundraising in 2021. As we experience Juneteenth for the first time as a National holiday, we ask:What has changed? What has remained the same?Where are the opportunities for improvement?The panel kept it real, as the conversation covered everything from exaspera ..read more