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John W. Rogers Jr. founded the nation’s first Black-owned mutual fund company and remains committed to expanding opportunities for other minority groups. Rogers comes from a family who upheld civil rights, fairness, and economic justice, he revealed in an interview with the SIU Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. It would be his father who sparked his interest in finance and economics. When Rogers was 12 years old, he received stocks as gifts for Christmas and his birthday. These included $200 worth of shares from companies such as General Motors and Commonwealth Edison, and he was able to pocket the dividends from those investments. “My dad was very insistent,” Rogers explained in the interview. “He wanted me to learn everything there is to know about the market, so he made me read the annual reports of the companies that were sent out every year, the quarterly reports that the companies would send out in those days, and I’d read about those companies.” His father also connected...
Rosalind “Roz” Brewer is a trailblazer. While Brewer has proven to be a corporate catalyst through her various high-ranking positions, it was her parents who set an example of excellence, both working at General Motors. In particular, her father worked several jobs simultaneously to support her education along with that of her siblings. “He didn’t have the choice to pursue even his high school diploma, but eventually achieved a significant management role in the auto industry. He displayed so much discipline and dedication to excellence,” Brewer, a Michigan native, explained in a Q&A with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, where she is part owner. View this post on Instagram A post shared by AFROTECH (@afro.tech) Brewer would go on to display the same characteristics she admired about her father. She attended Spelman College, graduating in 1984 with a degree in chemistry, before pursuing further education at the Director’s College at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business,...
Lewis Hamilton has made it his mission to diversify his sport. Hamilton, raised in North London, England, began racing at 8 years old and experienced a lack of representation in the sport firsthand. However, winning created an opportunity for him to feel accepted, he admits in conversation with GQ. “Being the only Black kid on the circuit, struggling at school, really always my big drive was acceptance — ‘If I win the race, I will receive that acceptance in this world,'” he expressed. View this post on Instagram A post shared by AFROTECH (@afro.tech) Hamilton began to allocate a lot of his time towards go-karting at a young age with the support of his father, Anthony, who was his mentor and manager, Formula 1 reports. Anthony simultaneously had three jobs at a time to support his son’s driving career. The sacrifice would pay off even within Hamilton’s childhood years. “We won the first six races…Then we just kept going. We kept winning. We kept winning championships,” Hamilton...
Elise Smith is helping to create better outcomes for diverse employees. She is the co-founder and CEO of Praxis Labs, an “immersive practice-based platform that drives inclusive, engaged, and higher-performing teams,” a press release mentioned. The platform offers has assisted companies including Google, Uber, and ServiceNow to help achieve benchmarks that boost engagement and lead to retention, enhance company culture, and increase equity and inclusion. “For me, it’s how do we use technology to help us become even better humans, to help us be able to give feedback across differences, to navigate difficult conversations, to provide performance feedback and expectations with accountability and care in a way that actually serves us all better, that creates more value for everyone, doesn’t cause harm,” she told AFROTECH™. “We’re seeing our workplaces need that more than ever.” To date, Praxis Labs has raised $23 million, per digitalundivided. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, Praxis...
Vanessa Wyche is leading the way at NASA and made history in the process. Since 1989, the South Carolina native, with a Bachelor of Science in materials engineering and a Master of Science in bioengineering from Clemson University, has worked at the U.S. government agency. Her first role was as a project engineer managing several space shuttle missions, as previously reported by AFROTECH™. Wyche was fueled by her interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and has continued to rise in the ranks with her titles having included director, CX program operations and test integration (2010-2011); director, exploration integration and science (2016-2018); and deputy director, NASA’s Johnson Space Center (2018-2021), according to her LinkedIn profile. “I knew when I got to the Johnson Space Center, there were not a lot of people that looked like me doing the kind of jobs that I was doing,” she told KHOU-11 in Houston, TX. “So, I kind of had to just kind of decide...
Responding to a fundamental calling, Denise Woodard became a visionary in a $2 billion industry. Her Calling Woodard was looking to find a solution to help her daughter who had various food allergies, as previously reported by AFROTECH™. She was searching for snacks that would help her daughter but ultimately started creating her own recipe for cookies made without wheat, tree nuts, peanuts, milk, eggs, soy, fish, sesame and shellfish — launching vegan company Partake Foods in 2016. Woodard saw great promise in her products and believed others would too. She received checks up to $10,000 from family and friends through a Kickstarter campaign to scale the business into Whole Foods and Wegmans, she told Forbes. “I was cobbling together $5,000 and $10,000 checks to keep the lights on, from anyone who would listen,” she told Forbes. “The dribs and drabs were not enough, so I sold my engagement ring. But we were seeing traction, which led us to raise our first institutional round.” A...
It’s officially time to announce the 2024 AFROTECH™ Future 50! The AFROTECH™ Future 50 is celebrated in our digital hub and social media platforms. During previous years, the individuals have also been honored in person at the annual AFROTECH™ Conference. The categories for the 2024 AFROTECH™ Future 50 are Dynamic Investor, Future Maker, Visionary Founder, Changemaker, and Corporate Catalyst. The criteria for each are as follows, as previously shared by AFROTECH™: Dynamic Investors are venture capitalists who have made significant contributions to advancing underserved tech founders. Future Makers have spearheaded groundbreaking tech innovation. Visionary Founders lead remarkable company growth and promote diversity and inclusion. Changemakers have made a significant social impact in the tech industry. Corporate Catalysts actively promote diversity and redefine and implement initiatives to do so. Established in 2022, the AFROTECH™ Future 50 aims to spotlight contributions Black tech...
For those struggling to make ends meet this holiday season, Zirtue is here to help. As previously reported by AfroTech, the world’s leading relationship-based lending app has always aimed to drive financial inclusion, and today that mission remains the same. With the launch of their Alternative Payment Solution for businesses, companies will be able to utilize the platform as a payment option for customers allowing them to pay bills directly through the platform. Courtesy of Zirtue With a mission to drive financial inclusion, one relationship at a time, our vision at Zirtue is to prove that friends and family are the largest banks in the world,” said Dennis Cail, CEO and Co-founder of Zirtue, in an official email-exclusive with AfroTech. “Ultimately, we aim to be the modern-day solution for people to access needed funds through relationship-based loans, avoiding payment defaults and predatory lenders, while keeping their personal and creditor relationships intact. We believe this...
There’s a difference between being for the culture and doing it for the culture and the three visionaries at Tradeblock — a sneaker trading app where kicks are currency — are committed to the latter for the sneaker community. The Austin -based startup officially hit the ground running earlier this year in May, but the initial vision for Tradeblock was birthed in 2009 by co-founder Tony Malveaux. While inspired by ESPN’s Trade Machine, Malveaux connected with his longtime best friend and now fellow co-founder Darren Smith about his idea — but it was a dream deferred until bringing their fellow childhood friend Mbiyimoh Ghogomu — Tradeblock’s CEO — onboard and from that moment they’ve become trailblazers in the sneaker marketplace.