The ESSENCE E-Suite Experience on the 2022 ESSENCE Festival of Culture pulled in all of the heavy hitters in business, finance, and entrepreneurship to be certain that the subsequent table you’re taking a seat at as a businesswoman, and skilled, you might be equipped to set all the table, eat and leave no crumbs—and then have them asking you for more. Because expertise information, industry insight, and highly credited consultation are all that was being served within the E-SUITE situated on the NOPSI hotel where business, beauty, and brains took center stage.

Unapologetically daring panelist, founder, and managing partner of 1863 Ventures, Melissa L. Bradley commanded the room all with a smile and an “it’s the Black joy for me shirt” neatly tucked under her blazer. Melissa took all the room through a lesson involving numbers that painted the financial journey of their business outcomes. “Numbers are only the numerical and qualitative portions of your corporation strategy, OWN your numbers, don’t outsource them,” Bradley said.

With a simple way of engaging the audience in the proper call and response method, Melissa proudly reminded the audience just in case we forgot, “business don’t move without the people.”

That statement by itself was enough to fill the room because we the people, aka the Black and Brown faces of each women AND men in business in any respect levels from initiate to scale, couldn’t get enough of the raw and realness being delivered from the mouth of investor that looked back at those self same Black and Brown faces and mirrored their very own image. Language is every little thing,” Bradley later added. “You usually are not the minority, you might be the brand new majority in business!”

Need to see what it means to be Black, daring, and true to the numbers in business from an industry leader that’s arming black founders with the processes and systems needed to succeed? Take a look at the complete conversation within the video above. For more of every little thing you missed on the 2022 ESSENCE Festival of Culture, visit our official video content hub HERE.