Female Business Owners In Houston Are Preparing The Next Generation Of Entrepreneurs

A Houston ballroom buzzed with conversations about business and entrepreneurship recently as successful women and aspiring girls gathered to put faces on what’s becoming a well-known fact: Black women are the fastest growing segment of business owners. And the SHE IS A CEO Foundation is preparing girls to continue the narrative.

“We pride ourselves in shaping the future of entrepreneurship by fostering business ownership for women of color,” said Angela Newkirk, the nonprofit’s executive director. “The foundation is committed to transforming communities and impacting and equipping girls to possess the tools and strategies to create generational wealth.”

Each year at its Girl Champions Brunch, some of the leading female business owners are recognized and applauded for their “resilience, effervescence, boldness, brilliance and confidence and courage.”

Pictured Executive Director Angela Griffith, Lyndsey Brantley, Dr. Ashandra Batiste, Nicole Coleman, Urica Chevis, Lamonica Love and SHE IS A CEO Founder, Johnte Archer.

Real estate standout Johnte Archer founded SHE IS A CEO in 2015.

“We want to make sure that girls understand what their full potential is and know that they can become anything that they dream of,” Archer said in a video on the foundation’s website.

Archer, who overcame poverty, the murder of her father and drug addiction of her mother, has spent much of her career giving back to the community. For the girls attending the entrepreneurship academy, interacting Black women who have excelled helps them match dreams to reality.

Madeleine Nelson served as the keynote speaker. Nelson is the head of U.S. Independent Label Relations at Amazon Music.

Nelson said, “We know that our life is so, so, so short. It’s not about the things … we are not here at this brunch today because of the things, we are here because of the moment, and the moment is about how we come together collectively to help us get to economic freedom.”

She and the other honorees are examples for the girls participating in SHE IS A CEO, offering them advice and encouragement for the academy’s signature pitch-competition.

The statistics on entrepreneurship align with the foundation’s mission with the recent Census identifying Black women as the fastest growing segment of business owners. According to the Brookings Institution, Black-women-owned employer businesses increased by 18.14 between 2017 and 2020, a rate that outpaced other women-owned businesses and Black-owned businesses.

With more Black women owners shining and an academy to groom up-and-coming classes, what was once quite rare shows signs of blossoming into a cultural tradition.