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Chrissy Watts is a proud Philadelphia native, or as she would say, "Proud Philly jawn," mom of two, hood advocate and founder of Philly Experiences LLC. Philly Experiences LLC started in 2018 as a passion project to give Black, Latinx and LGBTQIA+ travelers visiting the city of Philadelphia alternative experiences to the traditional Philadelphia Liberty Bell, Reading Terminal tours. The success of her first tour, Cheesesteak & Trap Music Bar Crawl surprised even Chrissy. Later she added Morals & Murals: Tales From Our Hood & X Rated Game Night Experiences has increased Philly Experiences popularity and provided Chrissy a path to healing! Travelers from all around the world have take her weekly experiences where strangers have become fast lifelong friends! Listen to her powerful, inspiring story. 

BEE NATURAL was founded by two recent Temple University grads Brittney & Tachi who turned their passion for hair, beauty, and empowerment into a business that tells a hair story of who we are and our goal is to help you embrace your natural locs. Meet these two ladies who have taken the guess work and frustration out of figuring out which products to buy through their monthly personalized box full of products for natural hair.

For this Live IMPACT episode for MED WEEK podcast episode, Mixed Messages: real estate collaboration and communication we talk with Maleda Berhane, Principal & CEO at AR Spruce LLC and Traci Powell, Vice President Mosaic Brokerage.

Sherrill Mosee is founder and inventor of MinkeeBlue organizational travel and work bags. With two engineering degrees in hand, she created the patented 3-in-1 stylish and functional bags for busy women on the go. After struggling with three bags while commuting to work on a crowded train into the city, she wanted one bag to organize and separate her shoes or lunch from her laptop and purse essentials. She can’t sew or draw, so she went to Target and bought a bag to cut and created the style she envisioned in her head. What differentiates MinkeeBlue from everything else on the market is a folding shelf in the middle of the bag that creates an upper and lower compartment to separate items in the bag. MinkeeBlue has been featured in Forbes, Cosmopolitan, the Katie Couric Show, Today Show, QVC and Macy’s. Sherrill is an alum of the University of Maryland, Drexel University, Philadelphia Fashion Incubator and the Workshop at Macy’s.

Sharita M. Humphrey is a nationally-recognized, award-winning finance expert and money mentor. Having previously been broke and homeless herself, Sharita knows first-hand that financial freedom has a blueprint and she’s committed to helping women change the financial trajectories of their lives. Sharita is a certified financial educator, speaker and coach. At her namesake financial consulting company, Sharita helps minority women better understand, manage and grow their money. Sharita also helps Black and Brown entrepreneurs learn how to accelerate their businesses and secure funding through her other company, BH Ventures which offers a comprehensive education program. Sharita was named the 2020 National Financial Educator of the Year for her work within her local community and across the country. She is the national partner and media spokesperson for Self Financial, Inc., and has been featured in top-tier media including CNBC, iHeartMedia, Forbes, Yahoo Finance and BBC World News.

Carmen started her company Elevate as a protest to the lack of diversity and inclusion in Birmingham, Alabama. Gifted with a powerful instinct to discern systemic gaps that too often hinder communities, Carmen has vision. She actively seeks out opportunities to expand equity within underinvested legacy neighborhoods and forges ahead with solutions. Carmen has developed blueprints that have been successfully leveraged by community leaders and partners to bridge equitability gaps and promote economic empowerment and transportation access.  She brings this intuitive approach and ardency for action to all of her work, including her first foray into entrepreneurship as the founder of Elevators.

Entrepreneur, producer, strategist…LaToya Stirrup gets things done. With over seventeen years of experience in advertising and marketing, LaToya is able to bring a wealth of knowledge to any business challenge. She’s the co-host of Tech, Beats & Bytes, and co-founder of KAZMALEJE, a company she started with her two sisters to create hair tools and accessories for the textured hair care market.  LaToya shared her founder story during our Founders to Funders kickoff mixer.

Ashley “Peach” Brown creator of Sledge Scarves. Determined to find a way that she could wear a scarf style and have it not slip off her head while sleeping, Peach created Sledge Scarves.  Listen to her story of how she’s worked hard to build her business full-time in less than two years!

LaRaine Henry has been working in the food and beverage industry since she was a teenager. Together with her husband Larry she has worked in every aspect of the food and beverage industry. They've owned restaurants, a catering company and now their latest venture Plates EDU they have created proprietary technology and a platform that offers a convenient, safe and affordable to offer a virtual culinary experience. Listen and share her story. 

By now most have heard or read about Greenbook and how it served as a way for Black people to travel safely. Meet Tracey Hobbs creator of Vanter. Vanter is Greenbook meets Trip Advisor. Vanter is a digital travel assistant to ensure diverse communities can travel safely. Listen to her story and contact vanter.co to learn more. 

Fallon has an incredible story of seeing a need and creating a solution. When her mother suffered a back injury and was prescribed opioid for pain management. Concerned about the side effects including addiction, Fallon went to work searching for an alternative. Listen to her founders journey. 

Judith's founder story is a love story.  Judith and her husband were regular spa goers and found there was not a place for just men. A Man's Cave  is a Pop Up Spa where Grooming and Kings meet. We are intentional about helping men prioritize their quality of life so that their health is not compromised.  We are a one stop total health and wellness space for men.

Monique Curry-Mims has over 15 years of business and leadership experience in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. She is a social impact professional skilled in strategic planning, collective impact, community relations, fundraising, and capacity building. Through her consulting and philanthropic work, she provides innovative strategies that help organizations meet their mission and goals. As Founder and CEO of Empact Data Solutions, her leadership provides a wealth of analysis and strategy insight for the organization and its clients - ensuring our team and solutions are effective and impactful.

This month our focus is Resilience!  Our guest for our six month anniversary is Ashlee Ammons founder of Mixtros.  Mixtroz is a SaaS company providing CaaS "Community-as-a-Service" driving attendees from phone to face-to-face in real time while capturing custom data. Users download the app, complete a virtual name tag and survey customized by organizer. Named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s inaugural list of “100 Powerful Women” in 2019; Kerry Schrader and Ashlee Ammons are a dynamic Mother/Daughter duo in the new wave of entrepreneurs creating services to make work and play simpler and more satisfying. Without formal tech backgrounds, they’ve blazed trails in the male-dominated tech startup space with their company Mixtroz, which increases engagement and collects data at gatherings. Following remarkable progress in 2017, Team Mixtroz kicked off 2018 by joining Alabama’s prestigious Velocity Accelerator and starring on an episode of A+E ‘s series “Rooster & Butch.” In May 2018, the duo was selected to pitch to AOL Co-Founder Steve Case during the Rise of the Rest tour stop in Birmingham, AL and secured a $100,000 investment from Cases’ Revolution Fund. The team went on to close a $1M round of funding, making them the 37th  and 38th black females to ever close a $1M+ round of funding.

This month our focus is Systems! By definition a systems is a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network. Procedures according to which something is done. We had an absolute blast with Charisse McGill, the owner/producer at Lokal Artisan Foods who in a little less than two years her French Toast Bites are the talk of the town in open air markets and is the first Black-owned business in Philly's popular summer hang out Spruce St. Harbor Park.  Our other guest Judy Wicks  is widely known as founder of Philadelphia’s iconic White Dog Cafe and a pioneer in the “Buy local food movement”. Judy runs the Circle of Aunts & Uncles, a micro loan fund for local entrepreneurs and has won numerous local and national awards. She dropped some gems! Take a listen. 

This month's episode of IMPACT: A Mom Your Business Podcast is Adaptation: Making Moves that Matter as we discuss what it really means to pivot and make a difference in the midst of obstacles. Our guest is Wil Thoms, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer of REC Philly. This Germantown-born, Philadelphia native has quite the reputation in the region's startup community. In just four short years he has grown his organization to almost 20 employees and raised over $3M dollars to scale from a warehouse in North Philly to a state-of-the-art facility in Center City Philadelphia. Will has been a champion for the creative community during the COVID 19 pandemic ensuring artists and creators have access to the resources, strategies and opportunities necessary to emerge from this pandemic like a phoenix.

This month's episode of IMPACT: A Mom Your Business Podcast is Disruption: Strategic Depth,” as we discuss opportunities to create depth and diversity in partnerships and supply chain. We have two amazing guest; Jamila Medley, Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance and Aaron Cabello of Black & Mobile.  Both guest share some important details and strategies on building depth and diversity through partnerships and supply chain, in business and mutual aid. 

Impact explores the impact of action in business, communities and education on the Philadelphia Region. This months episode powered by  Venture Cafe Philly features community leaders sharing how their networks are creating opportunities for mutual aid. Mutual aid is when people get together to meet each other’s basic survival needs with a shared understanding that the systems we live under are not going to meet our needs and we can do it together RIGHT NOW!

Shelly Bell is a system disruptor and business strategist. She started Black Girls Ventures in her home and later hosted her first event “Eat, Pitch, Vote” with the simple idea to bring women of color (WOC) together to discuss entrepreneurship, partnership, and support through collective economics. Shelly is on the forefront of the movement to connect Black & Brown female founders to capital. Black Girl Ventures continues to grow and now has five chapters and pitch competitions in twelve cities! Black Girl Ventures is now the largest pitch program for Black & Brown women in the world! Music for Mom Your Business: The Podcast "I'm Still Here," by Alycia Levels Moore. EP available on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon Music. Learn more about Alycia at https://www.alycialevels.com/. 

Interior designer Rasheeda Gray started her career in marketing. She spent fifteen years in corporate America, and when a friend suggested she stage her home to sell it during the real estate down time she discovered a new passion. Rasheeda started Gray Space Design in 2016 and has completed 60 projects, both residential and small boutiques. Her seven step process has led to features on Good Day Philadelphia, Raymour & Flannigan Design Magazine and HGTV's Flea Market Flip.