Growing up, I used to hear the saying, “Choose your friends, choose your future,” and I often wonder what life would have been like if I had not followed that sage advice.
I firmly believe that in today’s world — even more than ever — the same mindset has tremendous value in the business world. Whom you align with — and whom you choose not to align with — are equally important decisions with game-changing outcomes that will create a ripple effect throughout your professional and personal life. The journey to find those who are mission-aligned with purpose-driven values, strong ethics, and character can be a daunting challenge.
But one thing is for certain: By uniting and acting together, we become an irresistible force for good.
Through the Real Leaders community, many people have found multiple ways of connecting to elevate their purpose, surrounded by supportive, creative, and dedicated peers. An outstanding example of this purposeful mindset was at the Real Leaders UNITE event in early February 2024. This annual gathering of award-winning impact leaders is one of the few opportunities for mission-aligned leaders to connect and collaborate.
Lessons were learned from highly respected leaders including Stedman Graham, who guided our understanding of identity leadership; Lisa Bodell regarding radical simplification; Shark Tank’s Daymond John on raising capital and the do’s and don’ts of investor pitches; Tamara Loehr discussing building your personal brand to drive growth and impact; Shadi Bakour on the power of collaboration; and Peggy Shell on cultivating impactful teams, among many more.
There were also global high-profile celebrities and business leaders who care about social entrepreneurship, such as Pharrell Williams, who by video shared his words of advice and the latest news about his phenomenal nonprofit organization Black Ambition, which is helping close the opportunity gap for entrepreneurs of color and was the cover story in our Real Leaders Spring 2024 edition.
“Each and every one of you has the power, the will, and the capacity to make a difference in the world in which you live in.” — HARRY BELAFONTE
In a room filled with voluminous wisdom, everyone witnessed a collective spirit to leverage our business model and make the world a better place.
Every one of us has the choice of playing a small, medium, or tremendously large role in progress — or doing absolutely nothing. I think singer Harry Belafonte nailed it before he passed away in 2023 when he referred to “the power, will, and the capacity to make a difference,” which is why choosing whom you align with, what events you attend, and what you learn from those experiences truly matters.
Most of us see positive changes occurring within the business community, so let’s push those doors open even wider to include more newcomers, voices, choices, and solutions. There are no boundaries that we can’t collectively advance to create a far better future.
Whether you’re at the beginning or final stages selecting a leadership network, it’s important to know what to look for and what questions to ask your recruiter so that you have clarity on what to expect. This comprehensive guide was created to guide you through 3 crucial categories—Criteria, Commitment, and Content to determine which of the 4 major networks (YPO, Vistage, EO, and RL) are best for you.
Criteria:
Leaders face different challenges at different stages of growth. The conversations and experience levels are just different. If you’re a large and growing company you don’t want to be in a group with leaders trying to make payroll and if you’re a SMB owner, you may feel imposter syndrome if you haven’t raised over $100M in capital before.
3 Questions to ask your recruiter is:
What are the minimum revenue and employee requirements?
How are the groups formed?
Do the members share my values?
RL difference: If you’re an impact company CEO, ask, “do you have forums or networks specifically for impact or ESG-minded businesses? Is that a requirement for you?” If you’re in a traditional network, you may get called “cute”, “Pollyanna”, or “get looked at like you have 3 heads” (all real experiences).
At the end of the day, you want to surround yourself around individuals who inspire you and there’s no quicker death of a forum if this balance isn’t right.
Commitment:
Generally speaking, a CEOs responsibility is to maximize their return on investment with the scarce resources they have. Forums are sacred and should be taken very seriously and seen as a “must not miss meeting” but if you end up joining the wrong network, fees can create stress and the time commitment can become burdensome. Be wary of the recruiter who doesn’t let you be flexible with your annual dues and avoid joining the groups who don’t honor their time commitments. To avoid falling into a trap, you could ask:
Are there chapter dues on top of the annual dues?
What does the initiation fee go towards?
How much of a monthly time commitment is this from me?
Are the financing options available?
RL Difference: Real Leaders offers the most competitive pricing and your initiation fee (orientation fee) goes toward your first Real Leaders UNITE summit.
Content:
Whether you have experienced a forum or not, it’s important to know what to expect before registering for a leadership network. Each network also provides more content and networking opportunities called “micro-forums” outside of their confidential meetings. Another difference Vistage has is that their groups are recruited and facilitated by an executive coach or retired CEO. This is great if you’re looking for both forum and a 1-on-1 format. A few questions to ask your recruiter would be:
How many members will be in my forum?
Are they member-led or facilitated?
Are the annual summits included in my membership?
Do you support my thought leadership as a CEO?
RL Difference: Warren Buffet is famous for saying, “speaking can improve your value by 50%.” Building your thought leadership can elevate your brand and business development and joining a leadership network is a great way to do this. Real Leaders editors go to members first for stories and quotes to be featured in its global publication.
Conclusion:
Joining a forum is one of the best decisions you can make as a CEO. Whether it’s the relationships you build, the insights you discover, or just the flat out energy you get after leaving the meeting, there’s a reason why forums have existed for centuries. At the end of the day, you get out what you put in. At Real Leaders, we have members in all 3 of the other networks who come to surround themselves with values-aligned leaders who get them. Regardless, you qualify for a network like YPO or not, we believe every isolated leader needs an outlet to get help with whatever is keeping them up at night and hope that this guide was helpful in finding alternatives. Best of luck on your journey.
If you make a sandwich out of anything, make it a clarification of your goals and your belief in the other person.
F*ck the feedback sandwich.
That’s right. I said it. I may not be the first to say it, but I’m taking a bold stance against the feedback sandwich even though it didn’t really do anything bad to me at all. I just think it’s a bunch of bologna.
What is a feedback sandwich? For those who don’t know, it’s a communication technique used in business settings in which you share something good, followed by the hard thing that is the whole point of the conversation anyway, followed by another positive thing about that person. You are sandwiching the negative feedback fixings of the sandwich between two slices of positivity bread. It softens the blow. It makes it easier to deliver. And it confuses the crap out of the person you’re delivering the message to.
“Did he really just feedback sandwich me?”
“Did I even do something bad?”
“Maybe I’m actually crushing it.”
As anyone who has eaten a real sandwich knows, while the bread is what officially makes a pile of ingredients a sandwich, it’s the inner contents that give that sandwich its unique essence. And the real point of the feedback sandwich is the meat, veggies and/or cheese—not the bread.
The squishy positivity bread is added as a way to soften the impact of what needs to be said. The feedback sandwich is used as a way to comfort the vast majority of us who are conflict-averse. But I am going to suggest that softening the blow is counterproductive because it undermines your ability to work your way out of the conflict or to help your team improve. It sabotages the whole purpose of the conversation.
Saying the Hard Thing
In the highest levels of business, saying hard things is a necessary task. That is a big part of what separates good teams from great teams.
I’m currently writing a book on the most iconic entrepreneurs of our time (Musk, Jobs, Bezos, and Gates) and how their dark sides drive innovation. In my research, I have come across a grand total of zero feedback sandwiches deployed by these men. They say the hard thing all day long, loud and clear. They are vocal when the work isn’t up to their standards. Actually, to be more precise, they are often emotionally volatile when work doesn’t meet their standards. They seem to want the pain to be felt when good work is not done. It’s almost like giving out a ‘lashing’ when team members don’t get it right. I’m not saying this is admirable, but it’s the way they get things done.
Fearlessly relaying negative/constructive feedback is an important part of these men’s leadership strategy. Accountability comes in the form of pain and difficulty when you don’t do what you say you will do. At times this can skew abusive—which I absolutely do not condone—but there is a hidden wisdom here that helps drive performance. The message is that if you don’t do a good job, there will be consequences. When you are off-track in my organization, you will feel tension, and the only way to resolve the tension is to do great work. To be clear, this strategy doesn’t work for the majority of teams. Most normal, well-adjusted people will have a challenging time in these environments. And for each of these four founders, there is a long line of people who have been traumatized by working under them. But for certain hardcore folks, extreme tactics can actually drive them to do great work.
I recognize that we’re venturing into tricky territory here. I would never advise someone to be more emotionally volatile, nor would I ever advise them to unleash their anger on their employees or say harmful things when good work isn’t done. I would never condone that.
But I do think there’s value in understanding how and why unapologetic feedback drives innovation.
Don’t Hold Back the Emotional Impact
A hallmark of good feedback is the ability to communicate the emotional impact of the person’s work or behavior. Some of you may know that I am a huge fan of Nonviolent Communication. Definitely check out my post on the topic if you haven’t or aren’t already familiar with NVC. In NVC, a big part of the process is to share how the person’s behavior impacted you emotionally. For example: When you were 10 minutes late to the meeting, I felt angry and disappointed. Or, When you send emails to clients with typos, I feel embarrassed. There is wisdom in sharing the emotional impact. Emotions have the power to inspire change. Emotions have the power to motivate. Emotions get people to do things differently. When we speak with our emotions, our words hit on a deeper level.
The whole purpose of sharing feedback is to bring awareness to another person in order to drive change. When the impact is shared, it can really jolt the recipient into change. It can inspire or motivate them to really shift counterproductive behavior.
Musk, Jobs, Bezos, and Gates do this at the far extreme end of the spectrum. It can be abusive. It can be cruel. It can be bullying. It’s not a pretty picture. But it does really inspire their team to do great work. Again, I’m not condoning this. But sometimes looking at the most extreme examples can help us to find the wisdom to apply in a more balanced or moderate way.
I believe the sweet spot is to be able to share the emotional impact directly and compassionately, but without sugar-coating it. Share the anger, the concern, the disappointment. Let it be felt fully. Don’t hide this part. This person did something and it had a negative impact. But the key is to share this in a way that is respectful and considerate of the other person. We can totally share our anger in a way that is kind and respectful, and that is the magic of NVC.
To recap: the major problem with the feedback sandwich is that it minimizes the emotional impact of the counterproductive behavior. It keeps us from truly addressing the thing that needs to change. If we were going to upgrade the sandwich, if we decide to bring in any ‘bread’ at all, what kind of bread might you bring in?
I think the first worthy slice of bread is a clarification and reiteration of the person’s goals. This ensures accountability and a mutual same-page-ness of what they are working towards with you. It reinforces a sense of shared aspiration.
The second worthy slice is a statement of your belief in this person. You can wrap up the conversation by stating your trust and faith in their ability to do better. You believe that they can achieve their goals.
Those are the only two slices of bread that I would recommend in a feedback sandwich.
Beyond that, it’s all about honesty. Be clear, be straightforward, and don’t water it down. You are taking the time to have a difficult conversation with someone. Do not try to spin this into a positive conversation. Just say the hard thing.
It’s not supposed to feel great. It’s supposed to be potentially painful. It’s supposed to be awkward. It’s supposed to be uncomfortable. Being a leader is all of those things. Your ability and willingness to sit in the discomfort of tough conversations are directly correlated to your ability to succeed as a leader and founder. It’s also a prime motivator for your team to continue to improve.
Next time you have something difficult to say, just say it and leave the rest of the bologna behind.
If you want to hear more from Matt, subscribe to his newsletter The Unlock. It’s an email sent out every other week where bold leadership insights meet unfiltered wisdom.
Follow these 4 steps to become a future friendly purposeful business that will last.
By Desirée Bombenon
Incorporating purpose and sustainability into a business operation are key components to acquiring and retaining talent as well as securing partnerships. As recently as 10 years ago, we would not have been highlighting this as a major strategic move for a company — but the shift has happened.
We see the world differently, and only organizations that can adapt to the changing conditions and adopt the definition of future-friendly will be relevant, not because of their product or service, but because of how they operate.
Here’s how to start the road to a purposeful and sustainable business.
1 Leadership Acceptance
You cannot have team buy-in without authentic leadership acceptance for the shift in how your business will operate. Commitments of time, energy, and thoughtfulness must go into re-imagining a different business model, and leadership is key to execution.
2 A Guiding Coalition
People will follow other people whom they have a deep respect and trust for. Develop a team of influencers who can carry the message and create excitement in all divisions of the company. When the purpose and mission are articulated by a trusted peer, they are more likely to be accepted and supported by the team.
3 Sustainability as a Strategy
When developing your company strategy, sustainable practices should be part of the blueprint. Companies normally review or revamp their strategy every three years — or fewer if working with sprint strategies. When planning the next few years, build in a budget and program for sustainability. Whether it is digitization or a recycling program, it doesn’t need to have a huge cost. Some companies have implemented roles like chief sustainability officer or sustainability champion.
4 Measurable Impact
There is nothing more powerful than seeing the outcomes of your work. The same goes for sustainable practices. There are many ways to start measuring impact. Once you see the results and difference you are making not only in your company but with the community, share that information with your team and customers. These meaningful practices tie back into your overall corporate social responsibility and the values and beliefs by which your organization operates.
In addition, there are many support systems and models out there. Becoming a Certified B Corporation is one way to start the process. Other steps forward include setting targets for measurable environmental, social, and governance impact and focusing on outcomes, no matter how small.
The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) also has a multitude of resources and supports to help businesses start the process of sustainable practices. The UNGC 10 Principles provide a checklist focused on four pillars: human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.
Whatever you’re considering doing to become purposeful and sustainable, start now. Your business’s future depends on it.
Desirée Bombenon is CEO and chief disruption officer of SureCall and a diversity board council member for the Women’s Executive Network. She has over 30 years of business operational experience.
Accelerate your impact and your bottom line by attracting and building a people-first culture.
Imagine a world where work is additive to people’s lives. They take home a sense of inspiration and belonging to their families, friends, and communities, setting off a positive ripple effect.
Leaders have the power to perpetuate this cycle of good — and it’s not fluffy stuff. It’s good for business.
Companies that effectively deliver on their employee value proposition can decrease annual employee turnover by nearly 70% and increase new hire commitment by about 30%.
In a recent study, happiness led to a 12% spike in productivity, while unhappy workers proved 10% less productive.
Companies with engaged employees outperform those without them by 202%.
About 75% of Americans would not take a job with a company that has a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed.
Define Your Employee Value Proposition (aka What’s In It For Them?)
The standard hiring process starts with employers vetting candidates. But candidates are also deciding if they want to invest their professional talent and time into a specific employer. As such, the exchange needs to be two-directional. Ask, “Why would a candidate want to work here?”
What can you define and share with candidates to help them understand what their experience will be at your company? This includes tangible things like pay, benefits, and work expectations, as well as intangible things, like the ecosystem of support, recognition, values, culture, purpose, learning opportunities, etc. Collectively, this is your employee value proposition, of which company culture is one component.
10 Ways to Strengthen Company Culture
Build trust. Hire great people, equip them well, then trust them to do their jobs. No need for lots of extra rules when implicit trust (not subservience) is foundational to your culture.
Lead with empathy. Take time to understand where people are coming from.
Vulnerability can be a superpower. Be open and transparent so that your employees know you are human too.
The best leaders don’t have all the answers. Regularly invite in ideas, solutions, and collaboration from your team.
Live your company values. When you show up this way, you attract employees who naturally and authentically live similar values.
People need to feel heard. Create an environment where they feel comfortable sharing what’s working, what’s not, and what they need or can contribute.
Create an environment where mistakes are OK. Build opportunities for learning.
Personalized outreach really matters. Show that you see people as individuals by checking in and voicing your appreciation.
Show up to work as your authentic self. Buck the old way of authoritative leadership in favor of inspiring leadership.
Little things make a big difference. You don’t need to do it perfectly. Everything you choose to do will add up to something much larger.
Peggy Shellis the founder and CEO of Creative Alignments, a Time-Based Recruiting® company that partners with companies creating a great place to work. Creative Alignments is a Real Leaders Top Impact Company Award winner and sponsor of Real Leaders UNITE. Click here to see her post about her experience there.
If you’re a company leader grappling with getting more from your employees without compromising quality or increasing costs, look toward Denmark
Clothes are not trash. That’s the message Dan Green is working to spread because quite frankly, the United States is doing a bad job of recycling clothes, he says. Green is on a mission to keep clothes out of landfills by radically changing how unwanted clothing is collected and reused.
Green co-founded Helpsy, the only clothing collection company in the U.S. that has earned both Certified B Corp and Public Benefit Corporation distinctions.
Helpsy collects clothing, shoes, and accessories for reuse, recycling, and upcycling to help local communities, nonprofits, and the planet. The company keeps more than 30 million pounds of clothes out of the trash each year, diverting over 250 million pounds of carbon emissions annually.
More Than Recycling: Helpsy’s Impact on Jobs, Communities, and Carbon Emissions
“Together with our 1,200 East Coast partners, we convert discarded clothing into thousands of American jobs and millions in payments to businesses and community organizations,” Green says. “We prevent the emission of hundreds of millions of pounds of carbon dioxide and the use of billions of gallons of water while saving municipalities more than $1 million in waste disposal fees each year.”
A former portfolio manager on Wall Street, Green co-founded Helpsy with friends Alex Husted and Dave Milliner. Together they bought 11 companies primarily in clothing collection since 2017. They also invested in technology to modernize systems and utilize data to predict when and which collection points should be serviced to maximize the community’s satisfaction and minimize the economic and environmental costs of running trucks around.
“We exist to extend the life of clothing,” Green says. “We need to get out and let more people know that there are alternatives to the trash. It’s still unfortunately very normal for people to throw clothes in the trash — and we’re hoping to make that less and less socially acceptable.”
Beyond Goodwill: The Future of Clothing Reuse Starts with Helpsy
Helpsy collects unsold goods from a couple hundred thrift stores, does a few hundred drives each year with municipalities and charities, and in a newer initiative, it sells sorted, branded clothing to about 600 thrift stores.
“Clothing is the only major stream of waste that is growing on a per capita basis in a real way,” Green says. “We have to get over the mental hurdle that reuse does not destroy your brand and in fact enhances your brand.”
Green says the company has had big ups and downs. One stumbling block was when Helpsy tried to do direct-to-consumer e-commerce but did not get enough response to continue it. As for a bright spot, Helpsy realized its goal of providing benefits and stock options for all 145 of its employees. In another highlight, Helpsy expanded its reach with facilities in New York, Boston, and New Jersey, as well as trailers in Maryland and South Carolina.
“My family is very deeply rooted in social justice and making sure you leave the world a better place — that’s the point of your life,” he says. “We look forward to a future where used clothing is the first place people shop.”
Here’s my best advice from 30 years of C-suite experience.
By Darin Anderson
As impact companies, we see the greater purpose of our work and are dedicated to making decisions with the best interest of team members, customers, investors, partners in mind, knowing financial success will follow. However, it’s not always an easy path. From my three decades of C-suite experience, here is what I have learned are the keys to being a successful impact CEO.
1. Be clear on your purpose and what success looks for you and your organization. Find the best people who can help you achieve that — people who share your values, vision, passion, and determination.
2. Execute your plan. Listen, adapt as necessary, and execute. Work diligently and always do the right thing for your team and clients. Be highly accountable for results and actions, and be transparent in all that you do and your reasons for doing it.
3. Share the rewards equitably. Help people feel like owners in the organization’s success by allowing them to be rewarded like owners. We make it a priority to compensate our team members well and relative to the contributions they make with salary, benefits, bonuses, and company shares. Everyone in our organization can be an employee-owner. We are also transparent about our performance. When people feel truly invested in the long-term success of your organization, they will show up, give the extra effort, and deliver the desired output.
4. Surround yourself with people and peers outside of your organization who will be honest with you in life and take an active interest in your well-being and that of the company. I have many CEO friends whom I meet with regularly or run or ride bikes with to review family, personal, and business progress. I have learned so much from them and their approach and viewpoints. These connections are invaluable and have helped me be a better leader.
5. Find great partners in life. I am blessed to have an amazing spouse whom I have tremendous respect for and who appreciates me. She makes me a better person. We support each other and champion each other in this beautiful life journey. Like my marriage, my leaders are also my partners in life. We are committed to each other’s success, and we all know it.
6. Consider your personal impact and legacy. Look in the mirror and regularly ask yourself: Am I doing all the right things to achieve this? I reflect on my own impact often. Personally, I believe that if you take care of the people around you, create the right environment for individual and team success, and share rewards equitably and thoughtfully, you’re going to leave a great legacy.
Darin Andersonhas served as chairman and CEO of Salas O’Brien since 2006, guiding the company to become one of North America’s leading engineering and technical services firms. He has led large engineering and construction organizations for 30 years as CEO, COO, and CFO.
Pharrell Williams is closing the opportunity gap for entrepreneurs of color.
By Real Leaders
Pharrell Williams knows music. One of the most influential musical artists and producers in hip-hop, R&B, and pop, Williams has created chart-topping hits for household names, earning 13 Grammy Awards and six Billboard Music Awards. (Cue the mega-hit song Happy.)
Then there are his latest accomplishments in fashion design (Louis Vuitton’s men’s creative director), film production (Hidden Figures co-producer), and several other companies the serial entrepreneur helped found or collaborate with. But what’s music to Williams’ ears lately is not his own success as much as helping others succeed. He is determined to help Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs propel their startups through his budding nonprofit, Black Ambition.
Williams emphasizes that ambition is limitless, but access is not. Even today, Black and Hispanic founders in the U.S. receive less than 3% of all venture capital allocated. That’s why he is investing capital and resources into Black and Hispanic high-growth startups, working to close the opportunity and wealth gap for entrepreneurs who have historically been left out of traditional investment funnels.
“We can do and be anything we want to,” Williams tells Real Leaders. “We just need the support, we need the resources, and we need the tutelage and the guidance.”
Founded in 2020, Black Ambition wrapped up its third annual awards program in November. To date, the nonprofit has given out nearly $10 million to over 100 Black and Hispanic founders through a general prize track and a track for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Black Ambition has supported an additional 500-plus entrepreneurs with mentorship to strengthen their ventures. To say that Williams is happy with Black Ambition’s impact would be an understatement.
“You gotta pinch yourself because man, this is really happening,” Williams says. “These people are real. The dream is coming true.”
Black Ambition does not only give prize money. As critical as those funds are, the organization also provides other support to set up entrepreneurs for continued success. Semifinalists participate in several months of programming that includes mentorship, resources, community, and networks. Williams feels that he is answering a calling.
“I’ve learned from the mistakes that I’ve made, and I realized how much I paid dearly for it,” Williams says. “And I realize how many good things I’ve done and how they affect things in a much more exponential way. When you see all the parallels and all the patterns, you start to realize there’s this overarching goal of doing good and doing well. It’s a karma credit score. I’m just paying my tithes to the universe, not only leaving the door open, but doing my absolute best to share the codes in the most universal way possible.”
Anti-Systematic Gravity
At its core, Williams defines Black Ambition as anti-systemic gravity, a push to help Black and Hispanic startups gain momentum despite the challenges. It’s a need he witnessed first-hand growing up in the projects in Virginia Beach.
“As a child, I don’t know that I ever had ambitions to be an entrepreneur,” he says. “I had never heard of the word, and I didn’t grow up in a community that had that kind of mentality. Entrepreneurship was not something that we understood to be within the realm of possibility, and there was a hundred million percent no Black Ambition as a construct.”
He continues, “There were lots of Black-owned companies in Virginia Beach and Norfolk. They just would never celebrate it the way we celebrate it now. You didn’t hear about the person who owns the tire company or the landscaping business and was totally crushing it or the person who owns a swath of gas stations. The way that we herald it now is amazing, but we should have been doing that all along. Gravity pulls our race down, and we don’t even know it. Disproportionate access to health care, education, and representation — that’s a gravitational force that pulls down on marginalized people more so than it does for our White siblings.”
Williams considers himself fortunate to have been able to break through this gravitational pull. Born to a handyman and a teacher, the college dropout turned to music to cope with neighborhood shootings and hardships. “Music was one of the greatest distractions,” he says. “The music got us by.”
His career kicked off when he was discovered at a high school talent show by music industry veteran Teddy Riley. Williams later partnered with a friend to establish the production company The Neptunes, promoting and selling the work of pop, hip-hop, and R&B artists, as well as forming an R&B group with the same name.
“When I got into the music industry, eventually I realized, OK, you’re going to be your own publisher, so that’s a business,” he says. “As a musician, you’re making music, so you are making a product, and that product has to be managed. You are going to be known for the person who is supplying this product. The instruments that you use are what help you create or conjure this music. So, you start thinking entrepreneurially just by being a musician.”
Williams produced explosive hits for Jay-Z, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Nelly, Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Ed Sheeran, and other household names, and while the music side came naturally to him, some of the business side did not.
“The first 10 years, I made so many terrible investments, but I didn’t have anyone around to vet these opportunities and tell me, ‘OK, this is worth your time, this is worth your space,’ and most importantly, ‘this is also worth your financial investment,’” Williams says. He is ensuring that Black Ambition fills that role for entrepreneurs today.
“This is My Purpose”
Williams and his team are forging a way for Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs to “build uninterrupted.” It’s a phrase he uses often within Black Ambition.
“Building uninterrupted means that there is no historical and-or systemic gravity on your concept, that it is able to free float, and exist, and build on its own,” he says. “You’re uninhibited by any kind of gravitational force.”
To help create those opportunities, Williams put Felecia Hatcher at the helm of Black Ambition. As CEO, Hatcher has helped entrepreneurs connect to over $100 million in funding over the past eight years, earning honors from the Obama White House, Harvard, and Comcast, to name a few. She is an author, speaker, business owner, and co-founder of the Black Tech Week conference and The Center for Black Innovation. “Black Ambition is lucky to have her, but so are all of these entrepreneurial minds,” Williams says. “I always look to her. You listen to her speak, and you feel like you can do anything.” (Read Real Leaders’ Q&A with Hatcher.)
Black Ambition also has formed several strong partnerships with leading brands and organizations including Adidas, the Lennar Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Visa Foundation, Heineken, and Chanel. Plus, the nonprofit offers its awardees bi-weekly office hours with proven leaders in marketing, public relations, and brand building with Heineken, Snapchat, Netflix, and others.
“You need as many incredibly well-educated, well-experienced eyes around you at all times, and they should be better than you because if they aren’t better than you, then you’re never going to be better than what you are,” Williams says. “When you get a handful of them around you, wow, you’re about to be lifted.”
Winning recipients attend town hall meetings with Williams and receive life coaching and therapeutic workshops in groups and one-on-one, setting up a holistic career approach.
“It takes a village,” Williams says. “You just need the right people. You need the right energy — and that energy is curiosity, it is ambition, and it is the desire to see the person next to you do well. It is a devotion and a diligence with respectful reciprocation.”
As for fielding the prize applicants, Black Ambition looks for unique and innovative businesses to propel, primarily in the fields of technology and consumer products and services, but also in health care, media and entertainment, and Web 3.0.
“The purpose of a business should be based on its necessity,” Williams says. “It should exist because we need it and we don’t have it. Or if we already have it, it’s because this is the superior version and this is going to change the game. Other than that, it’s just fodder. We don’t need another edition of the same. We need something that is going to level us up.”
In 2023, Black Ambition introduced the So Ambitious HBCU Tour in partnership with Techstars and Thurgood Marshall College Fund. The tour brings entrepreneurial training to historically Black colleges and universities to create new wealth pathways and opportunities for undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurs. Students create real companies with the help of mentors, investors, and experienced entrepreneurs and the support of incubator and accelerator programs, business pitch competitions, boot camps, and access to capital. The tour is targeting Alabama, Florida, Virginia, Louisiana, Maryland, Texas, Georgia, and Washington, D.C.
“It looks so promising,” Williams says. “You see the support we’re getting, the kinds of partnerships we’re forming, and the people who are getting involved, the really creative Black and Brown ideas that are coming in — it’s really inspiring.”
A man of faith, Williams feels divinely aligned with his work for Black Ambition. “I believe that this is my purpose,” Williams says. “I believe that I’m supposed to share the codes, and I believe that there needs to be this organization that helps to share the codes by doing some funding and also really serious strategic advice and mentorship.”
Williams points out the need for Black Ambition to be amplified. “I see a future with Black Ambition chapters or offices all over the world because the Black and Brown diaspora isn’t just in America,” he says. “No matter what position we play in this world, we need to know that we can be anything, and that is the ultimate Black Ambition.”
Removing Barriers, Accelerating Success
Black Ambition CEO Felecia Hatcher gets real about the challenges of Black and Hispanic startups.
Real Leaders: What is Black Ambition, and what are you as an organization set out to accomplish?
Felicia Hatcher: Pharrell was the ultimate visionary creating Black Ambition, and when you think about vision, you also think about how expansive vision can be when it’s tied to legacy. So, I think of all the amazing things that he has done and has yet to do. The entrepreneurs impacted by his vision will be a part of his greatest legacy because those are the ripple effects.
We have 100 entrepreneurs that we’ve invested in up until this point at the three-year mark. A lot of organizations that do similar work have only dreamed of impacting as many entrepreneurs as fast as we can. We understand the premise that not only are we trying to close the wealth gap, but wealth has a need for speed — and a lot of people have gotten really, really comfortable wasting the time of Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs. We know that time is infinitely more valuable than money. So, once they waste that money, waste that time, they cannot get it back.
So, with Black Ambition, we do a few things. One, we’re getting them the resources faster, we’re getting them the money faster, so that they can go out into the marketplace, make decisions, hire people faster, and have a faster impact upon their communities while building really good companies. I think of all the success that the founders have had. We’ll reach the point where we’ve invested just about $10 million into these companies in 2023. They’ve gone on to raise over $92 million in the past three years with all the entrepreneurs that we interface with, and that’s no small feat when you look at the number of less than 3% of all companies actually receiving venture capital investment are Black and Hispanic.
What keeps me up at night is, if this initiative was never founded, these brilliant companies would not have been able to have the impact that they’ve had as well as the ripple and network effect. There are just so many people who stand in the way of this greatness being able to happen, which is the problem that we’re fighting every single day.
RL: What have been some of Black Ambition’s biggest challenges so far?
Hatcher: There are a lot of challenges when you’re building a program that also spans quite broadly in whom we serve — not just early entrepreneurs who are a little bit more seasoned, but then we also fund and support HBCU students. Pharrell and I feel that HBCUs are some of the most fertile but untapped grounds for talent, but that also comes with a level of additional support that’s needed sometimes because they’re very young entrepreneurs who haven’t done significant time in corporate and then decided to leave corporate America and launch a startup, which is what we see oftentimes with our early-stage startups. We make sure that they have the soft skills, support, and training that they need as well as mentorship and programmatic support so they can be globally competitive with what they’re building. We also teach them to be very good stewards of the relationships that often come from Pharrell.
In the business world, everything is a relationship game, whether you like it or not. Being able to be good stewards of those relationships, especially when you’re building a program at scale, is something that we are very careful with, and then really trying to instill that in the entrepreneurs we’re introducing them to, which he has cultivated over the years and we’ve cultivated as an organization.
The other part is funding for the organization. A lot of organizations that made very big commitments in 2020 have walked them back in a moment when we need additional capital. Funding for Black entrepreneurs and startup founders specifically is down 45% in the last year. In a time where the economic climate is a little shaky, those entrepreneurs need capital even more. Having great, strong institutional partners that have been with Black Ambition from the beginning is critical, but then we also have to navigate that day to day to make sure we’re building a sustainable organization that can continue to fund those entrepreneurs at the level in they need and which we’ve deemed to be catalytic for those entrepreneurs. It’s definitely a challenge we navigate every single day.
RL: What does Black Ambition look for in its applicants?
Hatcher: We look at their risk tolerance, how they’re able to navigate crises and change, and their ability to lead as a whole — so what makes them a great leader that not only will allow them to build teams but also to leverage Black Ambition’s initial investment to bring on additional investors. We also look at a level of resource magnetism: Do they have it? Can they attract the resources, people, and buy-in that they need to continue to build a thriving startup in their communities?
Then, we look at the usual stuff — product market fit, the market potential as a whole, the viability of being able to scale and be very good stewards of the resources.
Ultimately, what we’ve been building with Black Ambition with Pharrell’s vision is like a rocket ship for these entrepreneurs. Not every entrepreneur is ready to move and scale as fast as they think they are, so we’re also looking at some characteristics that represent that they can get on the rocket ship that all entrepreneurs hope for and then be able to take it, do something with it, and then ultimately be massive contributors back into the Black Ambition community.
RL: Is impact a common thread among Black Ambition’s winning companies?
Hatcher: When you look across our portfolio of entrepreneurs that we’ve invested in, they’re all for-profit companies, but they have the heart and soul of social impact entrepreneurs. They’re all building something much bigger than themselves with some sort of direct impact back to their communities. It’s an unstated thing that we look for in our selection process.
Community X is one of the companies that immediately comes top of mind because they built a platform that allows people to quickly sign petitions and make donations for big moments that require a lot of capital and advocacy to happen. They were our 2022 Black Ambition Prize winner. Then we have quite a few other companies solving some big problems, whether it’s in the reproductive health space for women, feminine hygiene products, or our 2021 Black Ambition Prize winner, Logistics, who is a construction software management company in the green tech space. So we are seeing these companies not just solving and getting into high-growth areas, but then also monetizing with an impact back into the community.
Support Black Ambition
Black Ambition is a nonprofit initiative launched by Pharrell Williams in 2020 that provides Black, Latino, and HBCU-affiliated entrepreneurs with prize money, high-quality mentorship, and connections to diverse entrepreneurial and investor networks and resources. Learn more at blackambitionprize.com.
Meet the 2023 Black Ambition Winners
Selected from 2,000-plus applicants, over 250 semi-finalists participated in the 2023 Black Ambitionist Mentor Program, a 12-week entrepreneurial curriculum. The top 36 finalists each received a minimum of $20,000 in prize awards, totaling $3.2 million. The final eight pitched live on stage to compete for the $1-million grand prize at Black Ambition’s third annual Demo Day in November 2023. Expert IEP, a parent-facing app that optimizes existing Individualized Education Plans with predictive AI for children diagnosed with a disability, won the $1-million grand prize; ECOMSPACES, a one-stop-shop for e-commerce solutions ranging from product photography to order fulfillment, earned the $250,000 top prize; and Monocle, a social e-reader that creates a community-focused reading experience, received the $200,000 HBCU grand prize.
After five successful years of producing the go-to list for the Top Impact Companies, it was time for Real Leaders to pause, revisit its mission, and grow an impact awards community that preserved its integrity while scaling its impact. So, we made a few changes:
1. We made it harder to make the list. We increased our minimum annual revenue requirement to be ranked as a Top Impact Company, removed public companies entirely, and disqualified applicants if they failed to submit adequate information in any of the six areas of our I.M.P.A.C.T. awards application. The Top Impact Companies were ranked by their three-year compound annual growth rate times their 2022 annual revenue.
2. We made it a tool you can leverage. Based on 13 years of experience interviewing over 1,000 impact CEOs on the Real Leaders Podcast, we asked questions that challenged the applicants to think clearly about how to communicate their I.M.P.A.C.T.:
Intention: What is the enlarged problem you’re trying to solve?
Model: Where in your value chain does your impact show up?
People: Where do you see the impact in your culture?
Accountability: What key performance indicator(s) do you use to measure your impact?
Collaboration: What is one collaboration that has helped grow your impact?
Transformation: How deep are you driving impact in the environment, society, or your governance structure?
We turned each of these areas into correlating awards categories to highlight the companies that didn’t reach the threshold for a Top Impact Company but are still making an impact and want to make the list one day.
3. We made it a collaborative community. All impact award winners are currently receiving access to impact-oriented events in a confidential forum to foster growth and innovation while collaborating on initiatives to grow awareness.
With 500+ applications, we are proud to reveal the 185 trusted brands that have inspired us and many others to preserve their mission while scaling their impact. Congratulations to all of the winners who rightfully earned this achievement and are returning dignity to business.
Kevin Edwards, President
Points of Impact
Real Leaders recognizes the rise in purpose-driven businesses with its sixth annual Real Leaders Top Impact Companies list. On the following pages, you will find a diverse group of companies around the globe that prove that businesses can thrive while helping to build a better world. We encourage you to support these companies by buying their products and services, investing in their growth, and sharing this list with your network.
From companies that have reimagined old business models to place a greater focus on all stakeholders to those that built impact into their business from day one, we are getting to the point, thankfully, where purpose-driven businesses are becoming the norm. This is something to celebrate!
Why Impact Matters
Many employees want to work for companies that align with their values, and many customers prefer to purchase products and services they feel good about. It’s crucial for the well-being of society and the health of our planet that businesses commit to a definition of success that incorporates social and environmental impact alongside profits.
Who Made the List
The Top Impact Companies list is reserved for those private companies that have completed at least three fiscal cycles and reached specific benchmarks for revenue and number of employees. You can find the full list here.
Here’s how to take back control of your life in 2024.
By Tony Robbins
As we look ahead for 2024, one thing is clear: We are living in uncharted territory — a time when the economic, political, and social landscapes are changing at a record pace. We are all being touched by the events happening around the globe. No matter where you live or what you do for a living, what is happening is unlike anything we have ever experienced.
While this is a time of massive uncertainty and endless complexity — if you’re prepared — it’s also a time of exponential opportunity. The winter season offers us the unique opportunity to grow, become more, give more, and share more. It can be the greatest season for any leader if you can develop an unwavering confidence amidst the storm.
What Will Hold You Back
What will hold you back is only one thing: fear. Fear that you’re not enough or don’t know enough. Fear of failure, fear of rejection. Fear can hold you back in subtle and insidious ways. Fear can also outright paralyze you from taking action.
The truth is, there is a part of you that will always be fearful — but you can’t let it be in charge because it will rob you of the life you deserve. It will cause you to miss the call — the call to become more, to experience that incredible nectar of growth, expansion, and contribution, meaning, impact, and achievement. The call to rise up and feel fully alive.
As we move forward in 2024, to have the life you desire, you must feed the best part of yourself every single day, demand the best part of you, and not settle for less than you can be, do, share, create, or give.
Here are five keys to help you to rise and make 2024 the best year yet.
Feed your mind.
You need to feed your mind daily with substance — not social media or news. My original mentor, Jim Rohn, taught me that you must stand guard to the door of your mind. Bring something new to it; otherwise, you will keep operating off the same old beliefs, the same old thoughts, and the same old emotions that will not get you to the level you want.
Growing up as a kid, I didn’t have any role models, so I found them in books. I read history, biographies of great leaders, businesspeople, philanthropists. I learned what made them successful and extracted the principles and applied them to my own life.
Strengthen your body.
Strengthening your mind is crucial, but equally important is strengthening your body. The mind and body feed each other. Go on a sprint, lift some really heavy weights, go on a really long walk. The key is to push yourself.
Every single day, I begin my morning by plunging into a pool of 56-degree water. And if I’m not home, I’ll jump into a nearby river. I don’t do that because it’s fun; I don’t do that because I want to do it. I do it because I’m training my body so that when I say go, we go. I don’t negotiate with my mind.
Priming your physical body can set the stage for the change you want to drive in yourself mentally and emotionally.
Find a great role model.
If you want the best year of your life, you need to decide to find a great role model, someone who is already getting the results you want.
Why? Because success leaves clues.
One person that I identified in my own journey was Sir John Templeton, once called arguably one of the greatest investors of the 20th century by Money magazine. He started out with nothing, just like me, and became the first billionaire investor.
Whom can you model?
Surround yourself with high-level people.
Think about whom you spend time with. If you want to raise your game this year, you must get in proximity to someone who is playing the game at a higher level than you are. Proximity is power.
Say you’re playing a sport like tennis. If you’re always playing against someone worse than you, you’re never going to get better. Always surround yourself with people playing at a higher level.
Pay it forward by giving more than you expect to receive.
In 2024, you must also find a way to add value to others. I truly believe that the secret to living is giving, and it’s what truly makes us alive and live not just a successful life, but a fulfilled one.
For me, feeding people and making sure families are nourished has been my passion for nearly five decades. I was fed by a stranger on Thanksgiving when I was just 11 years old. As a result, I started to feed others. Even when I did not have a dime to spare in my younger years, I managed to find a way to provide a meal or two for struggling families.
You can find a way to give back too, no matter what your current situation is.
As we all look to rise out of fear in 2024, one gift I would like to give you is an opportunity to join me for my Time to Rise Summit. This is a completely free virtual event that I do every January as a way to give back. The goal is to help you create momentum in your life by arming you with the psychology, tools, and strategies to make 2024 the best year yet. Find details at https://timetorisesummit.com/join-now.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Tony Robbins is one of the world’s leading life and business strategists and ranked No. 1 on the 2023 Real Leaders Top 50 Keynote Speakers list.
