The face of wealth is changing! and it’s looking a lot like melanin! So this month, we can’t help but feature the incredible BAUCE’s who are scaling their businesses at an extraordinary level. Here are a few 7 & 8 figure businesses that have committed themselves to showing up, and shattering glass ceilings. If they can do it, you can too.
LaToya Evans (LEPR Agency)
LaToya Evans is the founding principal and chief communications officer of the LEPR Agency. In the past few years, LaToya lead public relations and crisis communications for some of the world’s largest companies and communications agencies. As a spokesperson for companies including IBM, Walmart, Bank of America, Compass Group, and Cisco, she quickly rose to the C-suite, leading some of the company’s most high-profile public relations. Her decision on venturing full-time into her international public relations firm LEPR, just before the pandemic was about purpose.
Evans built a seven-figure business in less than four years. A budding empire frequently named one of the country’s premier Black-owned public relations and crisis communications firms.
Evans’ clientele list ranges from small businesses to major brands across the U.S & Europe. Leading corporations like Coca-Cola, IBM, Philips, and Walmart to name a few. She currently serves as the public relations leader for the family of George Floyd and the respective George Floyd Memorial Foundation. She has been a communications leader on U.S. presidential campaigns for both Andrew Yang and Mike Bloomberg and consulting on the Biden-Harris 2020 presidential campaign for national African American media.
Image source: Voyage ATL
LaToya wants her career journey to be an inspiration for young women who are considering a transition from a corporate career to entrepreneurship and dare to transform their passion into profit. She believes that her journey demonstrates the value of building your own table, even if you’ve been given the opportunity to sit at others. Particularly for young, Black women who feel unseen in the workplace, I hope that my career path is an example that when we build our own tables we can make room for everyone.
Website: www.lepragency.com IG: @latoyasevans @thelepragency
Andreah Dumebi Iyamah (Andrea Iyamah)
Andrea Iyamah owned by Nigerian fashion designer Andrea Dumebi Iyamah is a clothing line strongly inspired by ethnic cultures and elements of nature.
Image source: Style Rave
Founded in 2011, Andrea Iyamah adopts design elements that stay true to creating authentic clothing and resort wear that celebrate her African roots and cultures beyond. Inspired by travel and nature, the bold colors, modern femininity, retro classic silhouettes, and a contemporary edge appeals to the A.I woman who is an adventurer in spirit, mind, and style.
Andrea advanced her tailoring skills and educated herself about fashion which later fueled the genesis of the A.I. brand at the early age of 17. At the time, balancing a full-time degree at university and building the A.I brand, Andrea was motivated by her passion for creativity and was determined to build an African-owned brand that was rich and bold in style and most importantly internationally accessible.
For over a decade Andrea Iyamah has gained repeated recognition for its work in fashion and has over the years been featured in Vogue, Forbes, InStyle, Huff Post, and more. Celebrated as the leading African resort wear brand, popularly recognized for its eccentric and unique take on swimwear, being described as high fashion art. In addition to its premium resort wear line, the brand caters to females across borders who are confident, adventurous, and unafraid of clothing designed with a statement. Since 2011, the brand has focused on celebrating ethnicity with a modern twist, while maintaining its attention to quality, detail, and figure-flattering silhouettes.
Website: https://www.andreaiyamah.com/ IG: @andreaiyamah @andrea.oi
Tiffany Capri Hainesworth (Tcapri Tequila)
In a male-dominated industry with veteran and celebrity-owned brands, D.C. native and Maryland resident Tiffany Hainesworth is fighting the odds by being the first Black woman to solely own her own tequila brand, T-Capri Tequila. Hainesworth worked in the federal government for nearly three decades, pursuing her career in criminal justice, when a major life event brought things into perspective, and she decided to become an entrepreneur.
Image source: Black Enterprise
She was in a car accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury that caused a seizure disorder along with crippling migraine headaches. This incident forced her to reinvent her life, as she wanted to get involved with something different, something fun. She began to create gourmet treats, including wine and gummy bears made with popular liquor brands, but owning her own tequila brand was always part of the plan.
Hainesworth began to research in 2018 how tequila is made and was fascinated with the process. Working with the farmers who harvested the agave plant which produces her tequila in New Mexico, Tiffany made a small batch of tequila and signed a contract that made her the first Black woman to fully own a tequila brand. She wants women to know that anything is possible if they focus and put their minds to it.
Website: www.tcapritequila.com IG: @iamtiffanycapri @tcapritequila
Sheneya Wilson (Fola Financials)
After interning with a big four accounting firm in 2016, Wilson landed a full-time position as an assurance associate. But her time there was cut short due to her acceptance into a Ph.D. program. The company forced her to resign, making her choose between her lifelong dream of a Ph.D. and career-building at one of the largest accounting firms in the world.
Image source: Kuulpeeps
In 2018, Wilson started her PhD. program. She studied Accounting and Information Systems, becoming more adept at accounting technology, coding, machine learning, and cryptocurrency. But after two years into the program, she realized her heart was somewhere else. Her business, Fola Financial, was growing rapidly and garnering national attention. Because of the PhD. program requirements and limitations for entrepreneurs, Wilson had to make another difficult decision. After consulting with advisors and mentors, she decided to become a full-time entrepreneur.
In 2017, Wilson started Fola Financial as a side business while working at an accounting firm. When she became a full-time entrepreneur, she expanded her team and reached the seven-figure revenue mark. Fola Financial provides bookkeeping, tax preparation, tax planning, financial consulting, and business advisory services.
Her expertise has been recognized in various publications including the New York Times, CNBC, Sheen Magazine, and Forbes. She also serves as a tax expert on the Business Insider Tax Review Board.
Website: www.folafinancial.com IG: @folafinancial @thepeoplescpa
Ellie Diop (Ellie Talks Money)
Finance and business guru Ellie Diop was a single mom of four who lost her job when she turned her $1,200 stimulus check into a multimillion-dollar entrepreneur/finance coaching business.
Before the world entered a crisis because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ellie Diop was in one of her own. In 2019, the mother of two had been laid off from her sales director job, was going through a divorce, and was pregnant with twins.
Image source: Atlanta Black Star
Thanks to a background in finance and experience leading a sales team of 70, Diop had valuable insights to help entrepreneurs build a strong business foundation.
Ellie Diop was discouraged when she didn’t see any single-mom coaches after several weeks of researching the industry, so she saw a significant opportunity to cater to that under-served group. Two ring lights, a Canva membership, and a domain name later, Ellie Talks Money was born. She built her website and leveraged Instagram to market her coaching products to millennials who were increasingly turning to entrepreneurship. She frequently went live on Instagram to connect with people and offer free business tips. That social media audience quickly grew from 300 to 100,000 in six months. In 18 months, Ellie Talks Money reached $3 million in revenue by helping entrepreneurs like herself.
Website; www.elliediop.com IG; @ellietalksmoney
Sevetri Wilson (Solid Ground Innovations & Resilia)
In 2009, Sevetri Wilson began building her first company, Solid Ground Innovations (SGI), to encompass all areas of service that charitable organizations and individuals seeking to do incredible deeds of kindness would need. As demand increased, SGI expanded to expertise in branding, PR, and digital marketing, eventually landing a multi-million-dollar government contract. Within its first few years, at only 22 years old, Sevetri had bootstrapped SGI to a 7-figure company.
Image source: Medium
Still, on a mission to ensure nonprofit growth and development, she went on to eventually transform SGI’s nonprofit service into a technology platform, birthing her second company, Resilia.
Resilia is a tech start-up launched in 2016 to revolutionize how socially-conscious leaders develop, maintain, and grow the nonprofits, corporations, cities, and other enterprises they lead. A New Orleans-based company, which has a second office in New York, was named to Venture Beat’s Top Startups to Watch Out For in 2019. As of 2020, Sevetri has raised over $11M for Resilia and is known as the first Black founder in New Orleans to close a 7-figure round of funding.
Having bootstrapped her first company to millions with no capital and raised millions in venture capital for her second company, Sevetri is now committed to taking her vast experience in building wealth and business to empower other business owners and entrepreneurs from all backgrounds.
Website: www.sevetriwilson.com www.resilia.com IG: @sevetriwilson @resilia.co @sgicares
