Queen Latifah to Receive Harvard University’s Black Culture Award
The Queen gets acknowledged! According to USA Today, hip-hop royalty, Dana “Queen Latifah” Owens, will be receiving one of Harvard University’s most distinguished awards: the W.E.B Du Bois Medal.
Latifah and six other recipients will be honored on October 22, according to a statement released by the school’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. The medal is Harvard’s highest honor in the field of African and African American studies. It is named after Du Bois, a scholar, writer, editor, and civil rights pioneer who became the first black student to earn a doctorate from Harvard in 1895.
This year’s recipients also include poet and educator Elizabeth Alexander; secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lonnie Bunch III; poet Rita Dove; co-founder of Black Entertainment Television Sheila Johnson; artist Kerry James Marshall; and founder, chairman, and chief executive of Vista Equity Partners, Robert F. Smith. Activist and professor Cornel West will deliver the closing remarks at the ceremony.
According to Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal “is awarded to individuals in the United States and across the globe in recognition of their contributions to African and African American culture and the life of the mind. Recipients have included scholars, artists, writers, journalists, philanthropists, and public servants whose work has bolstered the field of African and African American studies.”
Queen Latifah received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006, making her the first hip-hop artist to receive a star on the famed walk. Throughout Latifah’s career as a rapper, singer, and actress, she has earned a Grammy, an Emmy, a Golden Globe, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, and an Academy Award nomination. She has also sold over two million records.
Her talents also led her to write a book on confidence and self-respect called, Ladies First: Revelations of a Strong Woman. In addition, she had her own her talk show, The Queen Latifah Show, which aired from September 13, 1999, until August 31, 2001, and then from September 16, 2013, until March 6, 2015.
“This is a natural extension of my golf course design philosophy and my TGR Design business,” Woods said in a press release. “Our goal has always been to design courses that bring people together and are fun for golfers of all abilities and ages.”
“Tiger Woods has had the most significant impact in growing the game of golf around the world and his investment and partnership in PopStroke will undoubtedly introduce the game to a new and wider audience of participants,” PopStroke founder Greg Bartoli said.
PopStroke, founded in 2018, is a technology-infused golf-entertainment company featuring professionally designed putting courses along with food and beverage options. PopStroke currently has one facility in Port St. Lucie, FL. Locations in Scottsdale, AZ, and Fort Myers, FL, are under development and several additional sites are planned for 2020 and beyond. TGR Design and Tiger Woods will be responsible for designing the putting courses at all future PopStroke locations.
But that’s not all.
MSN reports that HarperCollins Publishers has acquired world rights to Back, the first-ever memoir authored by Woods. The golfer stated in a press release, “I’ve been in the spotlight for a long time, and because of that, there have been books and articles and TV shows about me, most filled with errors, speculative, and wrong. This book is my definitive story. It’s in my words and expresses my thoughts. It describes how I feel and what’s happened in my life. I’ve been working at it steadily, and I’m looking forward to continuing the process and creating a book that people will want to read.”
Woods is founder and CEO of TGR, Tiger Woods Ventures, a multi-brand enterprise comprising his various companies and philanthropic endeavors, including TGR Foundation, a charitable foundation serving underrepresented youth through education; TGR Design, the golf course design company; TGR Live, an events company; ahe Woods Jupiter, an upscale sports restaurant.
Issa Rae Becomes The Newest Voice Of Google Assistant
It looks like being “insecure” isn’t always a bad thing. According to The Root, Insecure star Issa Rae is the latest voice to be added to Google Assistant.
“Starting today, Issa Rae’s voice is available as a cameo on the Google Assistant, in English for a limited time in the U.S.,” reads a statement the Google Assistant page. “To switch to Issa’s voice, simply say, ‘Hey Google, talk like Issa,’ or go to your ‘Assistant voice’ in Assistant Settings. You’ll then hear Issa’s voice when you ask the Assistant for things like the weather forecast or for answers to questions like, “When is the first day of winter?” You’ll also hear Issa’s voice when you’re in the mood for a joke or when you’re seeking motivation.”
The announcement was also made on the Google Instagram page, “Meet the new voice of your Google Assistant: @issarae! 🤩 She’s taking over our story today—follow along or say “Hey Google, #TalkLikeIssa” to try it for yourself.”
“I was in talks to do this last year and was just really intrigued like, ‘What? They want my voice? Why?’” Rae told CNN. “Then, you know, I realized that I use Google Assistant frequently anyway and just thought about how cool it would be to do.”
Rae started receiving attention for the YouTube web series Awkward Black Girl before creating, co-writing, and starring in the HBO television series, Insecure. She has received two Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress-Television Series Musical or Comedy and a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Rae has also written a New York Times best-selling memoir, The Misadventures of Awkward BlackGirl (37 Ink, $16.00).
LeBron James Gives 800 Students From His I Promise School New Nikes
The benefits of attending the I Promise school in Akron, OH, go beyond education. NBA star LeBron James has donated his signature Nike LeBron 16s sneakers to over 800 students at the school he opened in his home state.
According to the LeBron James Family Foundation’s website, its “mission is to positively affect the lives of children and young adults through education and co-curricular educational initiatives. We believe that an education and living an active, healthy lifestyle [are] pivotal to the development of children and young adults.”
In more serious news, James has been embroiled in an international controversy this week involving the conflict between China and Hong Kong. He said Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey “was either misinformed or not really educated on the situation” when he tweeted a photo on October 4 with “Fight For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong.” Morey later deleted the tweet. James was heavily criticized to the point that he released another response via Twitter: “Let me clear up the confusion. I do not believe there was any consideration for the consequences and ramifications of the tweet. I’m not discussing the substance. Others can talk About that.”
James, for better or for worse, kept tweeting through it: “My team and this league just went through a difficult week. I think people need to understand what a tweet or statement can do to others. And I believe nobody stopped and considered what would happen. Could have waited a week to send it.”
Mercifully for James, his NBA season starts on Tuesday, October 22, when his Los Angeles Lakers take on their stadium rivals, the Los Angeles Clippers.
Colin Kaepernick’s Team Addresses “False Narratives”
Colin Kaepernick’s representatives have released a list of statements that addresses the “false narratives” surrounding the former NFL quarterback.
In a Twitter post, ESPN’s Adam Schefter shared the full press release from Kaepernick’s agent, Jeff Nalley, and PR director, Jasmine Windham, titled “Facts to Address the False Narratives Regarding Colin Kaepernick.” The release begins: “There have been many false narratives in the media regarding Colin, we believe it is important to set the record straight, again. Nothing below is up for interpretation or debate, it’s the truth and nothing else.”
Colin Kaepernick’s representatives released statements today to clear up some facts surrounding their client: pic.twitter.com/Wo86KTkKDM
In the press release, an array of Kaepernick’s stats prove that he was–and still is capable of being–a very productive quarterback in the National Football League. “In summary, it is difficult to think of another young player in NFL history with statistics and character as impressive as Colin’s not being given an opportunity to earn a spot on an NFL roster after what he has accomplished,” the statement concluded. It’s been recently reported that President Donald Trump may have prevented Kaepernick from getting signed.
Carolina Panther Eric Reid–who continues to stand by Kaepernick–shared his thoughts on his former teammate via Twitter.
“There have been so many false narratives in the media regarding Colin, we believe it’s important to set the record straight, again.” Please read this!! Don’t believe the lies being told about my brother .@Kaepernick7pic.twitter.com/n7J384bT96
Kaepernick, who played in Super Bowl XLVII for the San Francisco 49ers in 2013, lost his job in 2016 after taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racial injustice in America. The act sparked the controversial #TakeAKnee movement. Although the National Football League has said that it is not colluding on keeping Kaepernick from getting signed, he sued the league and eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount last year.
However, Kaepernick remains an unsigned free agent; no teams have contacted him.
There are Only 4 Black CEOs at Fortune 500 Companies. Here’s How the ELC is Changing That
Addressing more than 2,000 high-powered executives and business leaders—including about 150 CEOs of the nation’s largest corporations at its annual hot-ticket gala in Washington, D.C. — Otha T. “Skip” Spriggs, president and CEO of the Executive Leadership Council, offered the evening’s theme and organizational charge: “leading with purpose.” The head of the preeminent group for top black global managers has placed the development and application of “tools to increase the number of black CEOs of publicly traded companies” at the top of that agenda.
Currently, there are four black Fortune 500 CEOs versus seven less than a decade ago, he maintains. Moreover, not a single black woman helms a Fortune 500 or S&P 500 corporation on a permanent basis. So Spriggs took the opportunity at the gala’s opening to share ELC’s high-impact strategies to advance African Americans in corporate America.
“There are qualified and overqualified black managers who can fill these positions,” he maintains. “This is not a talent issue but an access issue.”
Otha T. “Skip” Spriggs (Image: TIAA)
As in previous years, the event — part annual meeting, part extravaganza — included power networking and musical performances along with salutes to major corporations with the best track records for diversity best practices. This year, UPS received the Corporate Award; scholarships were presented to top-performing HBCU students and other academic achievers; and black corporate and business icons were honored. The 2019 Achievement Award went to Robert F. Smith, the CEO of BE 100s private equity firm Vista Equity Partners and the nation’s leading black billionaire, who came with a message of his own.
Spriggs said that every ethnic group and women have been elevated in employment and managerial positions in corporate America in recent years, except African Americans. As such, Spriggs said at the CEO Game Changers Summit that ELC has produced a model using “cutting-edge data” from consulting firm Korn Ferry to enable chief executives to develop more “professional black P&L leaders.” The data will also aid these executives and their corporate boards to design leadership succession planning.
According to the Harvard Business Review, African Americans represent 8% of the white-collar workforce.
Spriggs also stated that the organization will continue its laser-beam focus on boosting the numbers of African American corporate board members through such measures as the recent African American Directors Forum in Pittsburgh, which resulted in the successful placement of eight new board members at major corporations this year, and its new Advancing Black Directors initiative, which will “for the first time fill the demand” of diverse board candidates among leading corporations in Atlanta to start. The announcement came a day after BLACK ENTERPRISE released its 2019 Registry of Black Corporate Directors.
The 2019 ELC Gala (Twitter.com/CindyRKent)
Another area of strategic engagement involves its philanthropic efforts led by ELC Board Chair Tonie Leatherberry, president of the Deloitte Foundation. ELC plans to boost its annual contributions to scholarships and other such cause-related activities from $1 million in 2019 to $2 million in 2020. To meet its mandate, the organization has recruited a new chief philanthropic officer to bolster such efforts.
When Smith received his honor, he presented another call to action for ELC members. He stressed expanding internship opportunities for black students in a similar fashion to the thrust of his Fund II Foundation’s internX, a tech-driven program in which diverse engineering and computer sciences students, among others, can gain access to introductory job opportunities at major corporations across varied sectors.
The entrepreneur, who controls one of the biggest enterprise software companies, told the audience–whose attendees ranged from mid-level managers to CEOs–that they must exponentially increase the numbers of black interns their companies hire. This can be accomplished by using a “wholesale strategy.” In other words, recruit from more than just elite schools for diverse talent.
ELC members, Smith said, must become vigilant in meeting this objective.
“I believe the best way to ultimately increase the numbers of black senior managers, board members, and CEOs is to triple down on black interns,” he told the crowd. “It is a low-cost way to tap young, talented, and brilliant young people filled with new ideas. We need to open the windows to opportunity, and then hold open the windows to opportunity for others as long as you can. If that window is forced closed, open up another.”
Will Smith is Developing a “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” Spinoff
“Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down, and I’d like to take a minute just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air.”
We all may be singing that song once again! According to The Hollywood Reporter, Will Smith and his company, Westbrook Media, is developing a spinoff for his successful television show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Originally airing on NBC in 1990, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ended its run in 1996. The premise is loosely based on the real-life story of the show’s producer Benny Medina. The sitcom was responsible for Smith’s meteoric rise to stardom after being a rapper in the Grammy-winning rap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince back in the late 1980s. According to Complex, he recently launched his own limited edition Bel-Air Athletics Collection.
Smith’s latest movie, Gemini Man, was released October 11. In it, he plays assassin Henry Brogan, who is being hunted by an assassin named Junior (also played by Smith), a younger version of Brogan who can predict his every move. In an interview with Collider, Smith spoke about how he makes decisions for his future.
“More than ever, I’m seeing my role in the world as a role of service. In my younger days, it was ambition. I wanted to win. I wanted to put points on the board. Now, I’m growing into a position in my life where the main question that I ask myself before I do anything is, ‘How is this of service to the human family?’ So, with that prism, I’ll be making more and more decisions in my life. I love science fiction. I love filmmaking. Everything that I do is conscious and thought out, in some justifiable service to the human family.”
Led by CEO Brad Haugen and the creative and strategic direction of Lukas Kaiser and Sadao Turner, Westbrook Media is responsible for Will Smith’s popular launch into social media; the social channels for Smith’s wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith; Pinkett Smith’s talk show, Red Table Talk, JUST Water, son Jaden Smith’s sustainable and responsibly sourced water brand; and, most recently, the social campaign surrounding Disney’s recently released hit, Aladdin, which starred Smith as Genie.
Master P Becomes Owner Of Professional Wrestling Company
Percy “Master P” Miller is making a serious run to get to that billionaire status! According to Complex, the No Limit Soldier now owns a professional wrestling league based in New York City.
This isn’t Master P’s first venture into pro wrestling. He had a crew of wrestlers named No Limit Soldiers that competed against the West Texas Rednecks in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1999. Check out this YouTube clip of Master P performing on TNT’s Monday Nitro.
Miller purchased House of Glory, which is currently run by wrestlers Amazing Red and Brian XL. House of Glory’s next wrestling event, scheduled for November 16th, will be held in Queens, New York, and is aptly titled “No Limit.”
Recently on Instagram, Master P gave a stern warning to WWE owner Vince McMahon about his stake in the wrestling arena saying, “Vince McMahon, you in trouble, cause I’m about to take over wrestling… I’m eyeing all the top wrestlers. WWE? Come over here to us.”
Master P, who is no stranger to sports, was once a basketball player in the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) for the Fort Wayne Fury and the International Basketball League for the San Diego Stingrays. Although he no longer plays, he currently owns his own basketball league, Global Mixed Gender Basketball (GMGB). He just recently opened up a new restaurant called Big Poppa Burgers in New Orleans.
Learn more about Master P’s journey in a sit-down interview with Black Enterprise
Five Business Lessons For Young Professionals From The Nation’s Wealthiest African American, Robert F. Smith
When I attended a session during the 25th Annual Executive Leadership Council’s Mid-level Managers’ Symposium last week, I gained the rare opportunity to hear Robert F. Smith, the billionaire CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners (No. 1 on the BE PRIVATE EQUITY FIRMS List with $46 billion in capital under management), advise the next generation of black business leaders.
In his candid discussion moderated by Leilani Brown, ELC board member and SVP, Strategy and External Engagement, at for-profit education company K12 Inc., Smith shared his audacious journey from his middle-class beginnings in Denver to becoming the nation’s wealthiest African American with an estimated net worth of $5 billion. In fact, the former chemical engineer, who earned two United States and two European patents, told the audience in a jam-packed ballroom at Washington, D.C.’s Marriott Marquis that he shifted to high finance after reading the October 1992 issue of BLACK ENTERPRISE on Top Blacks in Wall Street. After a six-year stint at Goldman Sachs, Smith started Vista in 2000 and eventually joined that exclusive club. Focusing on the enterprise software space, his firm proved so successful that BE named it the 2013 Financial Services Company of the Year and ranked its series of groundbreaking acquisitions No. 12 among BE’s 45 Greatest Moments in Black Business.
Smith used his talk to offer valuable nuggets of career and business advice from his varied experiences and strategies.
Here are his five business lessons for young professionals:
1. Learn to Take Risks
“So what makes me tick? I didn’t want to be ordinary. I wanted to create something that had not been done on this planet,” Smith says of finding his niche of “solving complex problems with elegant solutions.”
That discovery was a byproduct of career moves he made early on. In high school, he applied for a college internship at Bell Labs and called about the position every day until he was chosen when an MIT student was a no-show. Later in his career, the Cornell University graduate decided to leave the engineering career track to earn an M.B.A. from Columbia University and engage in Silicon Valley dealmaking in the late 1990s. Obviously, that career transition paid off big time.
“Take risks while you’re young,” he says, challenging the roomful of Millennial corporate professionals to make occupational shifts and follow entrepreneurial pursuits before becoming too entrenched within companies that they become rick-averse career climbers.
2. Position Yourself to Win
First, find promising sectors and business trends projecting long-term growth. To ultimately gain success within the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Smith stressed, black corporate managers and entrepreneurs should target software technology. “Where vast wealth is being created is with private companies in software technology,” he maintains. “It’s where investment banking was 30 years ago. [Learn about] computing power and connectivity since every company will be facing this dynamic of change. The biggest issue is talent, so blacks must move into this area..”
Smith’s industrial outlook calls for exponential growth of software and service companies within the next half-decade, opening up multitudes of career and entrepreneurial opportunities. Moreover, he maintains that there will continue to be a shortage of U.S. workers to fill demand. To take advantage of this development, skills upgrading will be essential. So that his employees can keep pace with the rapidly-advancing tech environment, Smith provides free coursework in A.I. (artificial intelligence) and machine learning.
He also encouraged entrepreneurship among symposium attendees–among them employees of Amazon, Cisco Systems and Ingersoll-Rand –telling them to connect with one another “based on their shared experiences. Use this as a way to think about opportunities to create businesses of size, scale, and capacity.”
3. Use All Your Traits to Your Advantage–Even Perceived Weaknesses
Smith believes that you should use all your gifts–even those that you don’t readily recognize as such. For example, his discovery of diminished hearing in one of his ears forced him heighten his other senses, trust his intuition, and become even more focused and detail oriented in his business dealings.
He further told the audience that many of them will face institutional racism in business. He urged them not to let such situations become barriers to reach the next level. If underestimated or ignored, he says, use your low profile to access information and build skills while others are not paying attention to you. Asserts Smith: ” You have to learn how to fight.”
4. Take a Wholesale Approach to Diversity
Regardless of the rung you currently occupy in your business career, Smith believes black professionals should engage in “the uniqueness of giving”–and it doesn’t have to be financial. He says black professionals at all levels can play a vital role in the expansion of the diversity pipeline. His rationale is simple: In order for African Americans to ascend in corporate America, they have to first get through the door. He told symposium attendees to lobby their companies to increase the number of interns of color each year in addition to identifying potential recruits.
“To have an impact on diversity and inclusion, we must go wholesale,” he says. “We must get as much mass pushed through the system by opening up the process as wide as you can. We need to take that approach instead of going retail in which corporations only select one or two exceptional students from elite schools.” This tack, he argues, will disrupt corporate groupthink and pave the way for greater innovation.
5. Forget About Trying to Achieve a Work-Life Balance
What does it take to be truly successful? Intention and investment. Urging the young professionals to “invest in yourself,” Smith says that to break away from the pack in business is a 24/7 proposition that doesn’t leave time for much else. Asserts Smith: “Our world isn’t designed for spectacular success and a balanced life.”
Read more about Smith’s journey here for more Smith’s journey.
ColorComm is Helping Millennial Women in Communications Level Up in their Careers
The next generation of leaders is being called on in media and communications. Lauren Wesley Wilson, CEO of ColorComm, is making sure that no one is left behind.
For the past eight years, Wilson has brought seats to the table for women of color in communications through meet-ups, webinars, and events. And for the second straight year, ColorComm will host C2 NextGen Summit at New York City’s Chelsea Piers on November 14 and 15.
There are a number of professional development conferences and summits for women of color that have goals to inspire, educate, and connect with executives—but the C2 NextGen summit was designed by some of the industry’s leading ladies for women ages 35 and under, Wilson says, who “want to see themselves up there on stage…under-35 women who have achieved a great deal in a short period of time.”
This year’s speaker lineup includes Dalana Brand, VP of People Experience and Head of Inclusion & Diversity at Twitter; Linda Clemmons, sales coach and body language expert and CEO of Sisterpreneur, Inc.; and Sallie Krawcheck, CEO of Ellevest.
ColorComm helps catapult women of color in communications
Did you know that women make up less than half of the workforce in the United States? According the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and a report from the Pew Research Center, women are expected to make up 47.1% of the labor force in 2025 and 46.3% by 2060.
Beyond the numbers, women of color entering corporate America and those climbing the ladder face a number of challenges, from not receiving equal pay to not being able to catch a break.
With all of those truths, a part of Wilson’s mission is to help the next generation of leaders to change the way they think about work and how they contribute to the workplace so that they can truly benefit from what companies have to offer.
“I want people to go and find business opportunities,” she says. “I want people to go find jobs if they’re looking for a career change. I want people to find ways they can speak on panels if that’s what they’re looking to do. I want people to walk away knowing how to increase their personal finance. I want every single last person to go into their company and say, ‘I need to be on your 401(k) plan and match that plan.’”
Dia Simms, President of Combs Wine & Spirits at Combs Enterprises, speaking at ColorComm Conference 2019
Wilson adds that this summit will offer more than education and professional development, but provide a two-way learning experience where both the experts and the audience will have the opportunity to engage with one another in a real way and have the opportunity to be heard.
“It’s about giving this audience a chance to speak up and share what they need as it relates to support, as it relates to their manager, to be able to grow to feel excited and feel motivated and really learn from this audience, which I think is very key,” says Wilson.
Wilson always wants women to note that the summit is not just another networking event.
“ColorComm is about quality versus quantity. You can have thousands of people there, but if not one person can do something that you need or be fulfilled, than it really didn’t matter,” says Wilson.
Given the organization’s history and reputation for cultivating a community of doers, it is fair to say that the summit is where young women need to invest their time.
