Black Elites

Founders. Startups. The making of enduring companies.

Playbooks, teardowns and interviews from the operators building the next generation of category-defining brands.

In Entrepreneurship

David Rawlinson Took on the Internet’s Biggest Threat to TV Shopping

Reinventing a legacy business starts with figuring out what people actually loved about it. When David Rawlinson took over Qurate Retail in 2021, he inherited QVC and HSN, two brands built around...

Anok Yai Won Everything. Three Weeks Later, She Was Fighting for Her Life

Three weeks after Anok Yai stood on the stage at London’s Royal Albert Hall and was finally, after two prior losses, crowned Model of the Year, she was lying in a hospital bed at NYU Langone...

How US Black Entrepreneurs Can Pitch Investors Without Connections

A warm introduction can move an investor email from an overcrowded inbox to the top of the stack. But lacking a venture-capital network is not the same thing as having no route to capital. For Black...

Chris Womack Took Over One of America’s Biggest Nuclear Problems and Finished the Job

Most executives climb by mastering one thing. Not Womack. After joining Southern Company in 1988, he bounced through government affairs, communications, HR, power generation. Along the way, he...

Kevin Hart: From $25 Comedy Sets to a $400 Million Fortune

Kevin Hart used to count his money in twenties. Not investment tranches or box-office multiples, but twenty-dollar bills handed to him after a set at a Philadelphia comedy club, back when $25 was the...

How US Black Entrepreneurs Can Build Business Credit from Scratch

Credit gives a business room to breathe. It lets you buy inventory, cover a rough patch in cash flow, or fund growth without draining your own savings. But here’s the thing nobody tells you:...

Calvin Butler and the Fight to Keep Power Affordable in the AI Age

Somewhere in six different states, a bill lands in someone’s mailbox with a name on it: BGE, ComEd, PECO, Pepco, Atlantic City Electric, Delmarva Power. Different logos, same parent company...

Ifeoma Ozoma Took On Big Tech — and Rewrote the Rules for Every Worker

In 2020, Ifeoma Ozoma left Pinterest with more than a career setback behind her. As a public-policy manager, she’d helped shape the company’s response to vaccine misinformation and other...

From Punchlines to Empire: The Cedric the Entertainer Story

Long before he was trading one-liners with sold-out arenas, Cedric Antonio Kyles was processing paperwork as a corporate claims adjuster. It’s a detail that tends to get buried under the fedoras...