Gracie Cedres is a Harlemite who wears many hats including mother, fiancé, daughter, sister, educator, director, entrepreneur, and CEO. She attended Lehman College, obtaining her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology with a minor in Childhood Education. She later earned her Master’s in Educational Leadership from Pennsylvania State. For the past 15…
Poonam Rahman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of two international 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations designed to provide free resources to historically marginalized communities. The first international nonprofit she founded, Virtue Mental, aims to provide free mental health resources to historically marginalized communities, while her second nonprofit, Shattering Bias In…
Dr. Robert Mendonsa, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon from Flower Mound, TX, left his private practice and moved to Kenya in 2008. He and his wife Julie founded Naomi’s Village Children’s Home in Jan 2011. The home now provides total care to 89 parentless children. They also opened Cornerstone Preparatory Academy…
Elizabeth has worked in the field of Special Education for the last 12 years – spending half of that time in a traditional school setting and the other half within Transition. She previously taught in Chesterfield and Powhatan. Elizabeth received a B.S. in Psychology from James Madison University and a…
Denise is the founder and president/CEO of First Place® AZ (established in 2012), co-founder of the Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center (SARRC, established in 1997), and founder and CEO of DRA Collective, a marketing/communications firm (established in 1986) that serves clients in a variety of fields, including real estate,…
Larissa D’Andrea is the Founder of Hard Knock Productions LLC (HKP) and Art into Activism (501c3). With a passion for art and entertainment, she founded the social impact organization in 2020 with a focus on investing in art that inspires activism to create a positive, inclusive, and innovative environment; and…
A pioneer of many firsts, Jimmy Mistry never let the discouraging scoffs of competition get in the way of him successfully setting new standards in design, architecture and development. Over the years, he’s managed to have his name across designs for some of India’s giants and forayed into real estate…
Dean Haynesworth is CEO and Executive Minority Founder of Black Progress Matters [BPM], an organization committed to effectuating change in existing businesses and organizations. Still, BPM is also providing an ambitious incubator program for the development and funding of minority start-ups. Dean encourages, along with the BPM founding partners, to…
Afam Onyema was born in Chicago, IL in 1979. He graduated from Harvard University (cum laude) and Stanford Law School. While in law school, Afam co-founded the GEANCO Foundation. After graduating from law school in 2007, Afam declined multiple lucrative law firm offers in order to lead GEANCO full-time as…
Chris is a serial entrepreneur, a poker enthusiast, ex-professional superbike racer, Toronto Maples Leafs fan, husband, and father. Always on the lookout for new adventures has often meant he’s taken the road less travelled or made a new one for himself. He was born in Canada and has lived there…