The crowd in the Villanova Room was all ears on the morning of Wednesday, Sept.18 for the 14th annual Undoing Racism Day. The program was presented by the nonprofit CommUNITY Breakfast Collaborative (CBC), which brought together a panel of four Black entrepreneurs to discuss “launching, growing and sustaining” Black-owned businesses on the Main Line.
According to the CBC website, its mission with hosting these discussions is “to collaborate and support each other to be the ‘Beloved Community,’ through dialogue, education, networking, prayer and action.”
The breakfast began with a welcome from President of the CBC, Anne Minicozzi, who is also a part-time Villanova faculty member. Reverend Angel Pagan of Lower Merion Baptist Church then led the group in an opening prayer, urging the audience to approach the discussion with open minds and open hearts.
Paralegal and CBC Board Secretary Diana Robertson was the moderator for the morning. Robertson introduced the panel of varied age and experience, including Eric Murchison, the Vice President of WSFS Bank’s Small Business team; Ronald Williford, the CEO and founder of Philadelphia Financial Consultants; Donna L. Allie, CEO and founder of Team Clean Inc.; and fourteen-year-old student entrepreneur and author Nalani James, founder of Nalani Adelle Collections.
Each panelist described how they built their way up, carving their own path as a person of color in the business world.
Murchison described his foundations in banking growing up in North Philadelphia, and seeing economic disparity among the people around him.
“I would introduce people that I grew up with and people that I came across to banking, and ask them ‘Hey, who’s your banker?’” Murchison said. “Then, I would become their banker, and I would see how their life would change and how important finance was, and from there it became a calling.”
Williford began his business career at the Villanova School of Business, and upon graduating, he volunteered his time at Philadelphia elementary schools to teach them about taxes and the stock market.
“My motto is that financial planning begins with education,” Williford said. “If you’re not educated, you cannot proceed forward.”
Allie followed with an anecdote about cleaning houses on the Main Line, emphasizing that, in her youth, she did not understand her own worth and allowed the white women whom she worked for to determine it for her. Allie decided she could do more.
“I started my company Team Clean with a mop, a broom and a bucket here on the Main Line, and today, we have $38 million in sales and 900 employees,” Allie said.
Nevertheless, being a person of color in a predominantly-white field comes with its challenges. Allie and Williford reflected on many instances where coworkers assumed that they were not a person in power because of their skin color.
“I would go into a board meeting to negotiate a contract… where I’m the subject matter expert, I know my industry and I know what I’m doing,” Allie said. “Yet the questions were always directed to someone else other than me.”
“I have to have the faith and confidence in myself that I have the abilities, and I am supposed to be where I am supposed to be,” Williford said.
Citing the help of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, the panelists have combated these adversities.
“If it had not been for programs designed to help minority and female-owned businesses, I would probably still be cleaning houses on the Main Line,” Allie said.
Williford implied that to encourage interest in correcting disparities in the field, we must change how schools’ curricula operate, such as by bringing back home economics and educating about taxes.
“The first thing you want to do, no matter what your religion is, is pray on it,” Murchison said when asked for advice on how to pursue an idea or a dream and build it into a business. “Then immediately after, you want to write it down because writing it down is the first step in making your idea tangible.”
“You need a strong foundation of people who will tell you the good and the bad, so whatever it is you want to do, always believe it’s possible,” James said.
Click here to learn more about the CommUNITY Breakfast Collaborative and to watch the 2024 Undoing Racism panel.
