As DEI Faces Backlash, Fearless Fund Co-Founder Shares Her Plans To Continue Fighting For Equity

  • 5 months ago
On the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, Ayana Parsons joins Ali Jackson-Jolley with ‘Forbes Talks' to discuss how DEI has been weaponized, and what this means for equity in America.

0:00 Introduction
0:24 Fearless Fund's Origins
4:44 Successes In VC Funding For Black Women
7:58 Lip Bar's Funding Story
9:44 DEI In 2024
15:11 What's Next For Fearless Fund

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Transcript
00:00I'm Allie Jackson Jolly. I'm here with Aiyana Parsons. She is the co-founder of the Fearless
00:09Fund, which is the venture capital fund aimed at creating equity for black and brown women
00:17founders. Aiyana, welcome and thanks for being here with us.
00:22Thank you so much for having me, Allie.
00:24Yeah, so I'm excited because in about a month's time, you're going to join us in Atlanta,
00:29Georgia at the Forbes BLK Summit. You're going to share the stage with Stacey Abrams
00:35and we are going to have a much needed conversation around the current state of diversity, equity
00:42and inclusion, which will discuss some of the backlash that we've been seeing in the
00:48past year and some of the defunding. But before we get into that, I want to talk to you a
00:54bit about your career path and how you landed in this, you know, very storied Fearless Fund.
01:03So I took a look at your resume earlier in your career. You were in marketing, then you
01:10worked for some of the largest branding companies, including Procter & Gamble and Kimberly Clark.
01:16You led a team for the World Economic Forum. You and your husband, Evi, launched a consulting
01:25management firm called Yardstick. And that was all before 2019 when you launched the
01:30Fearless Fund. So tell me, are all these different career points as disparate as they seem? Or
01:37were you always kind of headed towards venture capital and equity?
01:44Yeah, I think it's a great question, Allie. And what I would tell you is I was always headed towards equity
01:52and inclusion. And the way that I have achieved that throughout my career has looked very
01:59different. It's been corporate America. It's been entrepreneurship. You see it manifest in
02:05venture capital. You see it manifest in leadership consulting and management consulting. But
02:11equity and inclusion has always been the goal. In fact, in, you know, coming out of business
02:17school at Florida A&M University, I was bright eyed and bushy tailed. And my ultimate goal
02:24was to be a CEO of a major company. I wanted to go sort of top 500. And throughout my career,
02:34you see that I worked for lots of big companies. And I worked in marketing, as you mentioned,
02:39strategy, sales, general management, all of these different functions so that I could ultimately run
02:46businesses and run P&Ls. And it wasn't until I sort of got off of that track, if you will, very
02:54unexpectedly when I was recruited by the World Economic Forum. But that was such a wonderful
02:59opportunity for me to take a step back from just my business or my brand and think about really how
03:07does the world work? Because ultimately, the WEF is behind a lot of the major decisions that are
03:14happening in the world, because the WEF is the organization that brings the most powerful leaders together to
03:20set the global agenda. And so while that was a little bit of a detour, it ultimately helped me get to this
03:26place where I am now. And, you know, over the last, I'd say, 11 or 12 years, everything that I have done,
03:34whether it has been, you know, working for the world's largest executive search firms, or starting my own
03:41management consulting firm with my husband, Ebi, or even starting, you know, Fearless Fund with my partner, it
03:48was all around, how do we close the gap? And how do we really lift those up who have been overlooked and
03:56marginalized? Because we need more representation at the highest levels of leadership. And Allie, just to
04:03simplistically describe kind of why I'm doing what I'm doing and how I've done it, I look at the first part of my
04:10career and really corporate America as trying to drive change from the inside and drive more diversity, equity and
04:19inclusion. But it's almost like musical chairs when you're trying to put, you know, different leaders in seats.
04:25Whereas the Fearless Fund is all about creating the next generation of, you know, Russell 3000, Fortune 1000, all of
04:35these global companies. That's what I see in these women that I've had the pleasure of investing in.
04:42Yeah, so let's talk about Fearless Fund and the last four years. Anybody who follows venture capital and knows
04:52anything about the black female founders trying to get their piece of the pie knows that it is abysmally small. Less
05:03than 1% goes to black women founders. But tell me a bit, let's talk about the bright side for a second. Talk to me about
05:14some of the successes that you've been able to accomplish with Fearless Fund. Tell me some of those women that you
05:25think may not have had opportunity otherwise that you look at and you're like, you know what, this is a one of those women
05:33who could be on a board at some point. Talk to me about that.
05:38Yeah, well, let me let me talk to you about the successes. But I also want to lay the foundation because people know that
05:43it's bad, but I don't think they know just how bad it is. So just to give you some perspective, in 2022, more than $288 billion
05:54was deployed in venture capital funding. And of that $288 billion, 0.39% went to all women of color, black, brown, you name
06:08it. 0.13% went to black women. And certainly, we invest in women of color. But the reason why we do it is because they are the
06:17most founded, they are starting businesses at a higher rate than their majority counterparts, yet they're the least funded. So
06:25that's, that's our why. And when you think about women of color, these women comprise easily more than 20% of the US population. So
06:33how is it that they're getting 0.39% of the funding? That's, that's really the why. So we came in to solve an unmet need. And we've
06:43got some rock stars. Everyone has heard about Slutty Vegan, so I don't even need to talk about Pinky Cole. But you know, Melissa
06:50Butler is a founder out of Detroit. She started a cosmetics business called The Lip Bar. She started it out of her kitchen. Having
07:00not come from a major consumer goods company or worked for a big cosmetics company, she is the number one black-owned beauty brand in
07:09Target. Just to give you some perspective, we've invested in more than 40 women of color. And the capital that we have infused with
07:20FundOne was about $26 million that we invested. With that capital, they've been able to hire. We've seen 100% growth in their
07:31employee base. We've seen the ability to innovate and bring to market new products. They've been able to build out their, their
07:40leadership teams. This is all about being able to, to turn a small business into a multimillion, hopefully hundreds of million
07:49dollar business that can scale and either go public or be able to be sold to a private equity firm or a larger strategic.
07:58Yeah, so let's talk about Melissa Butler and Lip Bar, right? What would have happened if you didn't find her, do you think? Do you
08:09think, like, just talk me through what, you know, and, and let's talk about it like sort of like anecdotally, as if she were a
08:19talented business leader who had an idea and had the business acumen and just needed the funding. What would usually happen in that
08:30case? Like, what do you think?
08:33Well, when they when they don't get it, I mean, for every Melissa Butler, and Melissa is exceptional. And in some ways, one could
08:41argue she was gonna, you know, fly at some point. And most of the women that we have invested in, they've got this unique ability to
08:49bootstrap. They have so much grit and resilience. And yes, they need capital. Some of them just need the capital. Others need the
08:58strategic networks, they need the mentorship, the, the advice and the guidance. And in my unique case, of course, coming from
09:05consumer packaged goods, as an industry in retail, I have a lot that I can offer to these founders. But for every again, every
09:12Melissa Butler, there are 10 women that have failed, and will fail because they haven't gotten the distribution in retail, they
09:22haven't been able to invest in their companies, they haven't been able to invest in their product innovation or bring on employees. And so
09:31that could have been Melissa's story had she not had the support of a number of angel investors, as well as investors like Fearless
09:41Fund.
09:42Yeah, so now let's talk a bit about DEI and what we've been seeing, you know, 2020. And I'm going to call out that Fearless Fund was
09:53launched in 2019. So before 2020, which is often called our nation's racial racial reckoning, of course, that was the year that George
10:04Floyd was murdered while we were all on COVID lockdown, and America watched that happen in real time. And many people said, okay,
10:14enough, we're going to fix the structural racial problems that America has. Four years later, as some predicted, there is definitely
10:32ground being lost in that there are many, many studies that show that the funding that went into DEI is now being divested and put into
10:46maybe ESGs around the climate, right. But also, there is a very real backlash in the courts, but also the public court of public opinion in
10:58which billionaires such as Bill Ackman, and Elon Musk, talk about the injustice and the brokenness of diversity, equity and
11:10inclusion, and the fact that corporations are trying to diversify. What do you make of this?
11:18Well, Ali, that's a loaded question. But let me just say, before George Floyd was murdered, Ahmaud Arbery was murdered, and he was
11:27murdered in Brunswick, Georgia, which is not far, I think, as you know, from our vacation home in St. Simon's Island. And then after Ahmaud,
11:36then you had Breonna Taylor, and then you had George Floyd. So there was really this this trifecta. And I often say we had two pandemics going
11:46on at the same time. We had the pandemic that was COVID-19, that had a lot of people at home, glued to the TV. And then we also had the
11:56ongoing pandemic that is systemic racism. And I think the combination of those two is why you had so many people up in arms over George
12:07Floyd's murder, as well as Ahmaud Arbery, as well as Breonna Taylor. And we did have this racial reckoning of sorts, where, for the first
12:16time that I can remember, there were hundreds of major CEOs that were calling out the injustice, calling out the racism, and saying very,
12:30very verbally and front-facing that they were going to do something about it and making commitments. Four years later, as you predicted, we've
12:41not seen them follow through, in most cases, with those commitments. As a matter of fact, what we are seeing is a lot of silent backpedaling. And
12:52you combine that with individuals like Ed Blum, who are suing a number of organizations, not just the Fearless Fund, but also behind the
13:04overturning of California legislation around board diversity. And as we've seen in higher education, overturning affirmative action, it's a domino
13:14effect. There were letters sent to major corporations from I think 50 different attorneys generals around DEI and cutting back on DEI. And so it is a
13:26very thoughtful and planned attack on DEI. And it's become weaponized. And what I would say to you, Allie, and this is why we need to be doubling
13:38down more than ever on driving more equity and driving a more inclusive business landscape, and really world, is because the latest estimates are
13:50that by 2044, Black and brown people will be the majority in the United States of America. And we've seen the business case for diversity. So I don't
14:01even know why we even have to repeat it. But, you know, companies that are more diverse, have greater shareholder value, greater top line revenue,
14:11greater employee engagement. And when the majority of those employees are going to be Black and brown people, how is it that we wouldn't follow suit with better
14:21representation at the highest levels of leadership in these organizations? The other thing that I will just say, and this will sort of lead into, you know, what I'm
14:32laser focused on right now, is that I truly believe that in order for us to be free, you need financial freedom, and the ability to close the wealth gap,
14:44whether it's the racial wealth gap, the gender wealth gap, the list goes on, you need money and a lot of money. And that money will help us solve for all of
14:54these disparities. These disparities in healthcare, these disparities in education, these disparities in access, these disparities in venture capital, you
15:04name it, you literally need money and lots of it for us to be able to do it. So that's, that's where my head is at.
15:12Yeah, and so it's a perfect segue for me. I want to know, again, I look at this sort of storied career that you've built up into now. I suspect that you're not
15:26slowing down. So what's next for you? What do you truly think is amongst this environment that we just talked about? What's next for IATA Parsons?
15:39Yeah, well, there's this notion of, you know, from fearless to freedom is really what's next. For me, freedom has always not only been the goal. But that's
15:50always what I have embodied. And I often like to say, when I think about my career, I never wanted to be a caged bird. The caged bird just wants to be free.
16:00And so that's why you see me make so many different moves and, and sort of put my stamp on different industries, different businesses, different
16:10geographies. I mean, I've had a very global career as well. And so in this next chapter, I believe that to whom much is given, much is required. There's also
16:20this just beautiful Toni Morrison quote, that she talks about freedom and power. And what she says is, if you're free, then it's your job to free somebody
16:32else. And if you have some power, then it's also your job to empower someone else. I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but that's what I want to continue to do.
16:41And I'll do that as a wife. I will do that as a mother of two young daughters. They're 5 and 12. And so we talk a lot about freedom in our
16:50household and empowerment. I'll do that through, you know, my faith. I'll do that, you know, with family and friends. I will certainly continue to do
17:00that through business and as an investor. But for this next chapter, it's not going to be the traditional sort of corporate method that I've used in the
17:10past. It's also not going to be running the day-to-day operations of Fearless Fund. But I am truly going to focus on those projects that help drive
17:21more financial freedom at scale so that more people can experience what I've experienced, which is ultimately living and embodying this American dream
17:31that so many people aspire to.
17:34Yeah. And so tell me what, so Fearless, from Fearless to Freedom, I like that. And you say it's going to be at the Fearless Fund, but also
17:43initiatives elsewhere. Can you give us a hint where that elsewhere may be? Is it, are you launching something new? Is there something that you can
17:53share with us?
17:55Absolutely. So I'm doing a lot more public speaking. My husband, Ebi, and I are currently writing our first book. And it will be a memoir, a memoir,
18:05because it's important for us to not only tell our story, but also offer some inspiration and not necessarily a playbook, but helping people
18:15understand what is possible and how we achieved the sort of impossible, if you will. So I'm very excited about that. I'm going to continue to
18:25write. I love business. I love leadership. I love teaching. And I think being able to write and speak can help drive so much change. So I'll
18:36be doing a lot more of that. And of course, I'll continue to, to consult with a number of businesses, because that brings me a lot of joy to
18:44help leaders and organizations reach their full potential.
18:48Yeah, well, we are out of time. But speaking of public speaking, we're really looking forward to seeing you in Atlanta on June 24th at the
18:59Forbes BLK Summit, talking about a lot of the same stuff we just spoke about, but doing it a little bit deeper, along with Stacey Abrams. So
19:09thanks so much for being here. And I can't wait to see you in Atlanta in June.
19:12Thank you so much, Allie. I'm looking forward to it.

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