Welcome to Intentional Conversations, where we intersect diversity, equity, and inclusion with leadership and business.

This week we welcomed Casey Ariel Thobias to Intentional Conversations!

So, grab your headphones 🎧, press play, and let the conversation begin!

** Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel because we're all about keeping the great conversations flowing. **

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• BLAZE means Building Leaders and Accepting Zero Excuses®️. 
• Entrepreneurship frameworks that we see in the Black community, we don't call entrepreneurship.
• Black entrepreneurship is pervasive in our community- we need to tell our own stories, with our own language.
• In the last 10 years, we’ve seen big business pick up the speech of Black women, even though Black women have had to scrub themselves away in big business. 
• Organizations need to listen better and reflect on what’s already working and then change. Use creativity to lift communities. Don’t use mainstream form of thinking to try to change a community that businesses weren’t meant for. 
• Big challenges for Black women: lack of funding- less than 2% receive grants, business loans, or crowd funding 
• Banking industry solution- if a Black woman opens a business account, then tell them they receive business banker... tell people what they need to know 
• Entrepreneurship Mental health is a huge issue we don’t talk about- 4 out of 5 report elevated stress 
• We need to do a better job articulating the challenges of entrepreneurship 
• There is a price to scaling your business. 
• It’s difficult to scale relationships, but the hope is to scale culture. 
• It’s not cheap because it’s cheap. It’s cheap because someone is being exploited. 
• AI engineers biases are being engineered into the products. Use a third party to check those biases. 
• I want marginalized communities to have what they need, not what I want them to have. 

CONNECT WITH CASEY:

Participate in the 2024 State of Black Women-Owned Businesses Report: blazegroup.io/survey

Learn more about Blaze Group at blazegroup.io

CONNECT WITH DR. WHITE & NWC:

Connect on LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | X

Subscribe to the NWC YouTube channel (New videos and more weekly!)

Visit the NWC website

Get your copy of Inclusion Uncomplicated

Get the weekly newsletter!

Want to be the first to know about upcoming events, tips and more? Sign up for our SMS list. We promise no spam, just the good stuff!