#RisingLeaders: Four Women Working to Create Opportunities for Economic Advancement in Underserved Communities

Closing the racial wealth gap and creating opportunities for economic advancement in underserved communities is essential to building a more equitable financial future for all. This month’s rising leaders are four women who are making strides in this area: the winners of PayPal’s inaugural Maggie Lena Walker (MLW) Award . This award celebrates the many legacies of Maggie Lena Walker , who was the first Black woman – and first woman – to charter and lead a U.S. bank, and recognizes the demonstrated commitment of women from underrepresented groups.

Kathryn Finney , Managing Partner of Genius Guild Greenhouse Fund – a $20 million fund that invests in high-growth companies led by Black women founders – is the inaugural recipient of the MLW Achievement Award, which recognizes her work investing in Black women entrepreneurs. For the past 20 years, Kathryn has connected Black women entrepreneurs with the capital and resources needed to scale their businesses. As one of the first Black women general partners of a venture fund, and as the founder of the game changing #ProjectDiane research initiative, Kathryn is committed to empowering Black innovation.

A recipient of this year’s MLW Emerging Leader Award, Sheena Allen is the Founder and CEO of CapWay , a mobile banking and financial technology company for those who have been underserved, overlooked and misunderstood by the traditional financial system. Sheena is one of just three Black women in the U.S. to start her own digital bank and through her work, she hopes to create opportunities and access to fair financial services, equity and financial education.

Chloe B. McKenzie , another MLW Emerging Leader Award recipient, is the founder of the Wealth Justice organization BlackFem . Chloe launched BlackFem in 2015 with a commitment to close the racial and gender wealth gap by healing financial trauma and maximizing wealth-building capabilities for Black women and girls.?

As a citizen of the Navajo Nation, MLW Emerging Leader Award recipient Vanessa Roanhorse knows firsthand the economic disparities faced by Indigenous communities. In 2016, Vanessa founded Roanhorse Consulting , an Indigenous women-led think tank that partners with leaders, communities, and governments to develop inclusive economic development initiatives for Indigenous people and others who have been overlooked. She is also one of eight co-founders of?Native Women Lead , which offers Indigenous women in business culturally relevant resources and capital to grow their operations.

As a member of the selection committee, I had the honor of getting to know these women, their experiences, and the important work they are advancing for their communities. I couldn’t be more excited to share their stories and impact.

How have allies or mentors empowered you in your career journey??

Kathryn: As CEOs, we often focus on the micro-activities of running a business, such as making payroll and the needs of an individual client, that we rarely take the time to see things from the macro level. Mentors help you to see the importance of looking at things from a macro level. Having the “outsider” view of my mentors has been crucial in helping me stay focused on big picture questions and strategic initiatives.

Sheena: Even as a leader, you should also always strive to be a student of the game. It is from my relationships with amazing mentors that I’ve been able to successfully navigate this crazy entrepreneurial journey. I don’t believe anyone is 100 percent self-made. Mentors and allies are needed to make those warm introductions and put you in rooms that would have been 100 times harder to enter without them. The entrepreneurial journey is tough already. So, anytime you can have a mentor that can help soften the blow of the many times you’re going to bump your head along the journey, take full advantage. I know I did.

Chloe: Along this journey mentors have played a major role in helping to open doors while also advising me not to walk through others. These people helped to shape my foundation while still growing my career. When it comes to allies, we actually prefer to work with advocates. To us allies are the ones on the sidelines cheering for you while advocates get in the game and make that block for you. My advocates have spoken my name in spaces I was unable to get into and pushed funding when others said no.

Vanessa: Allies and mentors have been critical to my work journey. Before I started my company, I worked at a nonprofit organization in Chicago and was able to learn directly from my manager and mentor what it meant to not fear being wrong but to lean into curiosity. It was freeing to have someone I admired share how being wrong is actually a major learning opportunity and to embrace it, because not only did he share this with me he lived it himself. It was a major shift in how I thought about innovation and the purpose of being innovative. Once I began my company, I struggled to find mentors that looked like me, so when I found other Native women running companies, I followed them around, buying coffees and lunches, just to find a way to connect and create a relationship. However, this also revealed to me the importance that networks play. Networks themselves are part of the empowerment journey and it is so important to create the networks you want with people who you can learn from, align with and who will challenge you to be better. I have spent the last decade nurturing and curating my networks, not just for myself but to bring others into them as well.

What advice would you give to young entrepreneurs who aspire to follow in your footsteps??

Kathryn: Just do it – focus on building out your idea and creating a company that can grow and scale. For BIPOC entrepreneurs, it is important to stay focused on your business fundamentals – like revenue, cash flow, cost to acquire customers – to reduce the impact of external biases against you and your business. At the end of the day, it’s about building an amazing company that generates returns for your investors, your community, and yourself. Anything outside of that is just noise.

Sheena: When I think back on my journey and how it has helped me get to where I am today, I’m just grateful for the experiences I’ve had. One example that comes to mind is deciding to bootstrap my first company and fund it with my own money rather than go the VC route. And then for CapWay , I was ready to have it VC-backed. Both times, I did what I knew was right for me at the time. So, I think the best advice I can give to aspiring entrepreneurs is to follow your intuition. When you’re thinking through your ideas and the path you want to take to grow your business, listen to your gut.?

Chloe: I am adamant that nobody should follow my footsteps as my path is not that of another’s. I challenge those coming behind me to build better and stand strong in their convictions and to understand and accept that it is okay to stop and start over as many times as needed. Often as entrepreneurs we don’t know that we got it right until we have moved on to the second or third project and the foundation we built was enhanced by another person.

Vanessa: For aspiring entrepreneurs, especially for Indigenous women entrepreneurs and business owners, the best advice I can give is to reach out and find others. Entrepreneurship can be lonely and as an Indigenous person, it can be even lonelier as we are usually the only Indigenous people in the room. I so often see aspiring entrepreneurs hammering through the same challenges that I faced because they do not yet have a network of other Indigenous entrepreneurs to learn from. Indigenous people learn by doing, and so by reaching out and building a community of others doing the same thing while also seeking elders and mentors who can guide you is critical. It is also how we have always been. If there is one that thing that I have learned in my business journey it is that being unapologetically Indigenous is powerful, lean into it. ?

Tell us a bit about your?work. How is your organization?helping?create opportunities for economic advancement in underserved communities??

Kathryn: I’ve dedicated my career to investing and empowering BIPOC entrepreneurs by helping these founders break the glass ceiling in industries that have historically excluded them. As the Managing General Partner of Genius Guild – a $20 million venture fund – I directly invest in BIPOC startups rethinking the flow of capital to build healthier communities. In fact, I have a history of doing so. In 2012, I founded digitalundivided to create a world where women own their work, investing over $50 million in funding in Black and Latino women entrepreneurs. And in 2020, I made over $150,000 in micro investments to more than 1,500 Black women entrepreneurs nationwide, including rockstar food startup Partake Foods and Amplify Charlotte in North Carolina through the Doonie Fund – a fund that I created to support Black women entrepreneurs during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.?

Sheena: Growing up in a small town in Mississippi where there was only one bank, I couldn’t help but notice its impact on my community. After experiencing other cities that had more accessibility to banks, I became inspired to dedicate my career to helping those who have been underserved and overlooked by the traditional financial system, especially those in the Black and Brown communities, because they deserve greater access. In 2016, I founded the idea for my own digital bank. In 2020, I launched CapWay , where my mission is to create opportunities and access to fair financial services, equity, and financial education for all.

Chloe: Through my upbringing in an affluent family, I understood early on how I’ve benefitted from generational wealth and the role it plays in seeking Wealth Justice as well as the impacts of financial abuse and shaming. In my work, I’m committed to helping Black women overcome financial trauma and achieve economic mobility. In 2015, I launched BlackFem , a Wealth Justice organization with the commitment to close the racial and gender wealth gap by healing financial trauma and maximizing the wealth-building capabilities for Black women and girls. BlackFem is also dedicated to building communities of teachers, parents, and others to help teach young girls about financial health. Through this work, BlackFem helps provide teachers and mentors with resources that will give students practical financial skills, such as opening a bank account.

Vanessa: As a Diné (Navajo) woman I know firsthand that there isn’t enough being done to support Indigenous female founders to grow their businesses and livelihoods. Until recently, Indigenous founders were pretty much invisible and I was one of them. This inspired me to dedicate my career to not just my professional path, but to also dream beyond today and look for ways to make our economic value system more inclusive. In 2016, I started Roanhorse Consulting , an Indigenous women-led think tank that partners with leaders, communities, and governments to develop inclusive health and economic development initiatives for Indigenous communities and others who have been overlooked. Through Roanhorse Consulting , we have developed frameworks that use Indigenous ways of knowing and being to co-create strategic maps, advise on capital investments, evaluate and measure impact, and test and iterate new concepts. I also co-founded Native Women Lead (NWL) , which offers Indigenous women in business culturally relevant resources and capital to grow their operations.

Kathryn Finney, founder and CEO,?Genius Guild ; general partner,?The Greenhouse Fund

?Kathryn, you’ve?dedicated?a great amount of your career to investing in and empowering Black?and Latinx women, founders, and entrepreneurs.?How?do you see this?work helping combat racism???

Racism impacts every American, whether they know it or not. According to a recent report by Citibank, $16 trillion was lost to the U.S. economy due to anti-Black racism in the past 20 years. This amount was lost by the entire U.S. economy, not just the Black community. By directly addressing racism, the systemic issue that causes the American economy to lose the equivalent of the annual GDP of the 27 countries in the European Union (EU), we are in fact investing in the growth of the U.S. economy.??

Sheena Allen, founder and CEO,?CapWay

Sheena, you grew up?in Terry,?Mississippi which has historically been an underbanked community. How?has this?experience?influenced your work?in the finance industry???

Growing up in a small town where there was only one bank, I wasn’t aware that our community didn’t have access to financial institutions like others did. In fact, it wasn’t until I moved away from Mississippi and spent some time in places like the Bay Area and Austin, Texas, that I realized other communities had access to so many banks. And that so many places in these cities only accepted debit and credit cards. It got me thinking – even prior to the pandemic – that when the cashless economy hits, it would be very challenging for a lot of people, especially for those in my hometown. It was this experience that inspired me to create a digital bank that could represent my community and the diverse group of people that have historically been underserved and overlooked by banks. I believe that my personal experience growing up in an underbanked community has helped me better understand the lives of the people in these communities and how access to banks and digital banking options can impact their lives.

Chloe B. McKenzie, founder,?BlackFem

Chloe, what inspired you to help?Black women overcome financial trauma? What experiences in your own life?have?prepared?you for this?role??

My experience growing up in Prince George's County, Maryland, which is one of the wealthiest Black communities in the country, largely shaped my work today. I had this incredibly unique financial experience, one that isn’t the norm for many Black women and families. When I launched BlackFem , I wanted to afford the opportunity of economic empowerment to more Black women. And knowing that many Black women are coming from places where they have been overlooked and experienced extreme disadvantages, I wanted to create resources that would help them overcome this trauma and gain financial control in their lives. I believe that the first step in healing from financial trauma and repairing a broken economic system is to get people to name what they're experiencing. Only then can we truly create a truly inclusive future of wealth.

Vanessa Roanhorse, CEO,?Roanhorse Consulting ; co-founder,?Native Women Lead

Vanessa, as a?female?citizen of the Navajo Nation, how has your personal experience?and culture?impacted your professional career??

Being raised both on the Navajo Nation reservation and then moving away to go to an elite boarding school on the East Coast when I was 13 years old has shaped how I understand wealth and who gets to decide what wealth means. It has taken time to work through these concepts about what is wealth and who gets access to it, and in particular what does wealth mean to me as a Navajo woman. I can say that throughout my life, across many careers, that wealth and access only move through financial systems that were not designed for many of us, and if anything, continue to harm and marginalize our potential. At some point, I realized I was waiting for someone to do something, and it was not until I had my son that I realized I was waiting for me. I did not know exactly what it would be but I knew that it was time for me to move into my own matriarchal power. This is the work we do today, we work to open pathways and doorways for incredible leaders on the ground to not just do their work but move into their power. I believe if we are to see a financially just economy then we have to build one that allows for all people to define what wealth means to them.??

It has been such a privilege getting to know more about these remarkable women and the progress they are making to develop a more inclusive economy. I’m truly humbled by all the incredible work our rising leaders are accomplishing and the impact they will continue to deliver in this new year.??

Follow #RisingLeaders to stay up to date on the series, and share with me who a rising leader in your life is – it can be someone you know personally or someone you haven’t met, but are inspired by.