Who or what is your inspiration in business?

For 25+ years, I’ve dedicated my career to building socially conscious ventures that help women uplift themselves. An early venture involved working with women artisans in East Africa and Latin America to produce beaded bracelets sold in department stores. My second act is launching &BACK COFFEE, a Women Owned, Women Grown coffee company that lets people make an impact through something we all do daily: drinking coffee. From beads-to-beans, it’s exciting to scale this impact!

How do you stay motivated?

My bold and audacious goal at &BACK COFFEE is to touch the lives of 10,000 women through our supply chain. We know that for every dollar a woman earns, 90% goes to her kids, household, and community. So, this is not just feel-good, it’s smart trickle-down economics. We’re inspired by every conversation we have, where we learn something new to take forward with us, and people have really leaned in to help. We’re all about brewing something bigger, together, with every cup.

What would you do with the $25,000?

We need to add more places from where we source our coffee to keep up with growing demand! Since we work closely with Fairtrade to identify and source from women-led coffee cooperatives, we would use this money to visit these cooperatives in Columbia and Rwanda to meet the women, capture content and share their stories to help consumers connect to the farmers and understand the impact of their choice of coffee, ensuring all voices are heard at the (coffee) table.