Black Elites

Markets, capital and the companies redefining the global economy.

Deep reporting on the deals, firms and industries where the next chapter of wealth is being written.

In business

The Retail Problem That Turned John Imah Into a Billion-Dollar Founder

Retail has a returns problem. A massive one. In 2024, American shoppers sent back roughly $890 billion worth of items. Apparel accounts for a disproportionate share of those returns, driven largely by...

Angela Benton Turned Silicon Valley’s Diversity Gap Into a $47 Million Success Story

For years, Silicon Valley liked to call itself a meritocracy. The funding numbers told a different story: Billions of dollars poured into startups, and Black founders and other underrepresented...

How Buying His First Stock at 30 Led Stanley Rameau to Build Renavest

Every investor has an origin story: the stock that flipped a switch somewhere in their head. Stanley Rameau’s switch flipped late. He was 30 when he bought his first share. Not 22. Not fresh out...

Black Women Now Lead US Business Creation. Here’s Why.

According to the 2026 Wells Fargo Impact of Women-Owned Businesses report, Black women owned roughly 2.8 million nonemployer businesses in 2025. That number climbed 13.2% in just one year, faster...

How Justin Samuels Built One of America’s Biggest Tech Conferences by Betting on Atlanta

Most people would have built a major tech conference where the money already was.Justin Samuels didn’t buy it. He bet on Atlanta instead. When Samuels launched RenderATL in 2019, he wanted...

The AI Race Is Getting More Dangerous, Will Black Entrepreneurs Be Users Or Owners?

A recent security incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face gave us a disturbing glimpse. AI is moving fast. It’s shifting from a simple business tool to a powerful digital instrument. During an...

How Riana Lynn Turned Doubt Into an AI Platform Powering Food Innovation Across 122 Countries

For decades, the global food industry flew blind. Scattered data. Slow lab testing. Pure intuition. That’s how companies tackled everything from product formulation to food allergies. AI was already...

Why Black Tech Entrepreneurs are Skipping Silicon Valley to Buy Boring Businesses

For ten years, the script was rigid. If you were a Black tech operator with talent, you built a deck. You moved to San Francisco or New York. Then you spent eighteen exhausting months begging for a...

Why Ashley Williams Left Journalism to Build RIZZARR

Journalism once seemed like the safe bet.You got influence. Access. A real voice in the room. But by the late 2010s, the industry’s foundations were beginning to crack.Newsrooms were shrinking...