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Until this week, when President Barack Obama for a second time signed into law a healthcare reform bill, little notice had been given to a significant education reform tucked into the bill that will expand Pell Grant funding and help make loan repayment more manageable.
Thomas Venable Jr. loved his job as a senior graphic Web designer. The e-mail marketing company where he had worked since 2003 offered him flexibility to work from home and freedom to pursue his creative ideas with a “great team.†But with an injection of venture capital two years later came a plan for restructuring; then new management and layoffs. The staff of 50 was winnowed down to fewer than 10. Eventually the company closed its doors and Venable found himself unemployed.
If you want to know how the American shopper feels from one month to the next you can peruse a stack of consumer sentiment surveys—or you can chat with Liz Dunn. Since graduating from Spelman College in 1996, Dunn has steeped herself in the retail industry’s most vital statistics. She has worked in corporate finance positions at Gap Inc. and Liz Claiborne, studied the sector’s ups and downs for investment clients at Prudential Equity Group, and worked as an investment banker in the consumer sector at Bear Stearns. As a managing director and retail equity analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners in New York, one of the frequent questions Dunn hears from investors these days is: “Can the economy—two-thirds of which is driven by consumer spending—rebound while Americans are still nursing post-recession shell-shock?†Dunn spoke to black enterprise recently about the economy and a handful of retailers prepared to capitalize on value-driven shoppers.
In her latest book, Career GPS: Strategies for Women Navigating the New Corporate Landscape (Amistad; $25.99), Ella L.J. Edmondson Bell, Ph.D., founder and president of ASCENT-Leading Multicultural Women to the Top, offers techniques for all women aspiring to advance their careers in corporate America. “When the recession clears out, the opportunities are going to be vast and we need to prepare multicultural women to succeed,†says Bell, who is also an associate professor of business administration at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Bell explains that this time of economic uncertainty is the time for women to create a strategic career vision for themselves that includes flexibility, authenticity, and support.
By 2020, President Barack Obama envisions America leading the world in producing college graduates; however, achieving such a goal may be easier said than done as the achievement gap continues to widen between blacks and whites.
