2016 Color of Wealth Summit Agenda

This happy hour mixer serves as a networking opportunity exclusively for members of the Experts of Color Network, national partners, and other guests, immediately preceding the awards reception.

The 3rd annual ABC Awards Reception will highlight and acknowledge the efforts of champions in the asset-building field. These include members of Congress, researchers, business leaders, and practitioners who have contributed greatly to national progress in addressing racial wealth disparities.

Entrepreneurs’ Salon

We start the evening with a conversation with entrepreneurs, who sharee what it took to find business success.

Moderator:
Jamal Simmons, Principal, The Raben Group

Entrepreneurs:

• Osiris Hoil, District Taco
• Gabrielle Jordin, Jewels of Jordin
• Aaron Saunders, Clearly Innovative
• Trevor Wilkins, Kudzoo
• Julia Wilson, Wilson Global Communications

Awardees:

• Charles Rangel, Member, U.S. House of Representatives
• Maxine Waters, Member, U.S. House of Representatives
• Melvin Oliver, President-Elect, Pitzer College
• Michael E. Roberts, President, First Nations Development Institute
• Meizhu Lui, Board Member, Highlander Research and Education Center

Maya Rockeymoore, President and CEO, Center for Global Policy Solutions

Moderator:
Ray Suarez, Journalist

Panelists:

• G.K. Butterfield, Chair, Congressional Black Caucus
• Barbara Lee, Member, U.S. House of Representatives
• Ted Lieu, Member, U.S. House of Representatives

Owning a business can help reduce the racial and ethnic wealth gap by allowing individuals to fulfill their potential to create wealth-generating opportunities for themselves and others. Equitable opportunities for entrepreneurship may also increase jobs and economic development in areas where people of color and those with lower incomes disproportionately reside, which in turn improves the health and socioeconomic status of vulnerable households and communities as well as the economic performance of regional economies. This roundtable will explore the extent to which entrepreneurship can be leveraged to close the racial wealth gap and how to effectively advance an inclusive agenda for creating, growing, and sustaining minority businesses.

Moderator
Kelvin Boston, Host, Moneywise with Kelvin Boston

Panelists

• Michael S. Barr, Professor, University of Michigan Law School
• Alejandra Castillo, National Director, Minority Business Development Agency
• Gary Cunningham, President and CEO, Metropolitan Economic Development Association
• Connie Evans, President and CEO, Association for Enterprise Opportunity

This exciting interactive session will bring together financial service innovators with a panel of business savvy professionals (“sharks”) who will vet the concepts and offer an insider’s perspective on what makes a proposal investment-worthy. The session will feature entrepreneurs with ideas that seek to bring vulnerable populations into the financial mainstream. The innovators will present their concepts and the sharks will use their experience and knowledge to critique their presentations.

Judges

• Janis Bowdler, Managing Director, Financial Capability, Community Development, and Small Business, JPMorgan Chase Foundation
• Natalie Madeira Cofield, President & CEO, Walker’s Legacy
• Jerry Nemorin, Founder and CEO, LendStreet
• Brandon Andrews, Values Partnerships

Innovators

• Angel Rich, WealthyLife
• Eric Kinman, Working Solutions
• Irum Musharraf, PayActiv
• Marla Bilonick, Latino Economic Development Center

Panelists:

• Hector Cordero-Guzman, Professor, The School of Public Affairs, CUNY
• Christy Finsel, Executive Director, Oklahoma Native Assets Coalition
• Gil Berry, Executive Director, Gil Berry and Associates, Inc.
• Patricia Smith, Senior Policy Advisor, The Reinvestment Fund

This interactive strategy session includes a deep dive into community economic development. The workshop will allow ECON members to strategize around an equity-centered economic development framework that can guide further research and practice supportive of a culture of health and economic well being.

Algernon Austin, Senior Research Fellow, Center for Global Policy Solutions

This presentation will delve into the recent research by ECON Members and act as a platform to present findings and concepts for further discussion. The session will also serve as an arena to brainstorm additional methods and mechanisms to close the racial wealth gap.

This engaging workshop will serve as a brainstorming and strategy session for ECON members to discuss an equity agenda aimed to strengthen business ownership in communities of color. The session will serve as the first step towards a renewed focus on how entrepreneurship can help close the racial wealth divide by allowing minority business owners to become self-sufficient while creating jobs in their community.