What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
Finding clarity in career;
Gaining traction with 3 Marketing Assets;
Finding ideal role;
Building meaningful relationships;
Ace the interview

Leander Howard II believes in helping REAL people obtain REAL results. He is the Founder/CEO of Spark Your Resume, a full-service career development agency connecting top talent to top companies. He is the Host of Spark Your Success Podcast where he connects entrepreneurs to better business.

He started his career at Adobe as a Financial Analyst in August of 2020 and recently left to go full-time in his business in October of 2021. He is an alumnus of Georgia State University where he received a dual degree in Finance and Marketing through the J. Mack Robinson College of Business. During his time at Georgia State, he interned at Wells Fargo, Arthur M. Blank Foundation at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, served as the President of Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Business Fraternity (2019-2020), and was listed as a Forbes 30 Under 30 Scholar in 2019.

He has been featured on many platforms for his wealth of knowledge such as Typeform which is a form builder tool for his automation and digital marketing skills, Canvas which is a diversity recruiting platform where he taught a masterclass for Black History Month teaching students how to prepare for their next job interview, and Afro Tech by Blavity where he also taught the African American community “How to Prepare for an Interview During Afro Tech 2020”.

When Leander is not working, he enjoys reading, daily fitness, listening to podcasts, and spending time with loved ones.

Leander Howard II with Spark Your Resume

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
The inspiration of the idea for POM pops;
What makes their brand different;
How and why the gut brain connection is so important;
Who POM pops are for;
Where to buy POM pops

Amber Cleveland, CEO at Peace of mind Popsicles.

She is a serial entrepreneur, a mom, a mental health therapist, and a GSU alumni. She has been in private practice for 12 years in Decatur, GA treating adults with anxiety, depression and stress management. She’s the mother of a child with learning differences and food sensitivities. And she is passionate about making life easier for all parents as they raise unique and amazing children.

Amber Cleveland with Peace Of Mind Pops

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
Wealth gap in AA communities;
Affordable housing;
Estate planning;
Extracurricular activities for children

Ambria Hardy, Founder & Qualifying Broker at The Maxwell Haus.

Ambria is a real estate broker by trade and an economic developer. She is currently a Project Manager with the Georgia Dept. of Economic Development, specializing in business attraction. She is also a veteran of the GA Army National Guard where she held two MOSs as a Geospatial Engineer and a Geospatial Intelligence Imagery Analyst.

Ambria Hardy with The Maxwell Haus Residential Agency & Real Estate Academy

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
The start of HomeTele SLP;
HomeTele SLP – as a business;
SLPs do in their work with children (Communication Disorders);
Target audience

Meridith Rose, MS, CCC-SLP is a pediatric speech-language pathologist and owner of HomeTele SLP, which was founded in June 2020. She was inspired to become a speech-language pathologist over 20 years ago, following her youngest brother’s diagnosis with an autism spectrum disorder.

Her passion to help her brother and other children with communication and neurodevelopmental disorders led to her receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of Florida, Master of Sciences degree in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology from Florida Atlantic University, and Applied Behavior Analysis program certificate from Florida Institute of Technology.

She has 15 years of experience as a Florida and Georgia licensed and certified Speech-Language Pathologist, and has served neurotypical and neurodiverse pediatric populations ages 2-18 with various communication disorders and exceptionalities in a variety of settings (e.g., schools, daycares/preschools, clinics, homes). Her background in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) has been instrumental in her speech and language therapy treatment approaches (e.g., positive reinforcement, facilitation of oral language development).

Throughout her career she has developed an immense passion for her work. She strives to improve her clients’ communication skills through the implementation of fun yet functional therapy activities that are culturally responsive, in their school or home environment via tele-therapy. Understanding the importance of the generalization of learned skills, she works closely with her clients and their families to provide them with strategies and supports to aid in the transfer of communication skills across environments.

As a lifelong learner, She is continually seeking opportunities to grow professionally. She is currently a doctoral student, graduate research assistant (GRA), and GaLEND Fellow at Georgia State University, where she is pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in the Education of Students with Exceptionalities.

Free 30-minute consults that can be scheduled by visiting the website www.HomeTeleSLP.com

Meridith Rose with HomeTele SLP

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
hiihat 1000 list that celebrate small Black businesses;
Paid advertising that is better than Google

Ngozi Ahanotu-Anorue is an ambitious, well-versed Founder across content creation and customer experience. As early as she could remember, she was shuffling words on paper and selling something to someone, somewhere. So she’s turned her passion for entrepreneurship and community, into the story-driven content agency NIA NIA Creative Studio and community-led website hiihat, a search engine to help people find all things Black, an all-in-one place called hiihat.

Ngozi’s superpower is improving and advancing the intricacies of a brand’s online or offline presence through words, data, and video. Her approach at developing brand voice allows her to mentor and coach creators on upskilling and implementing sharp marketing efforts or campaigns.

A graduate of Georgia State University (B.A. Journalism) and Johnson and Wales University (MBA Hospitality), she lives, breathes, and creates all things Black not just for herself, but for the future of Black communities. Although a tech founder, her love for storytelling doesn’t lean only on technology but on the historical themes that can repeat themselves in society, offline. She believes supporting and endorsing Black life is not charity work, it’s a necessity for the American economy to survive.

Ngozi resides in Atlanta, GA and is recently married. When she’s not advancing how we circulate the dollar in Black communities through content or via search, she’s traveling with her husband, spending time with her family, friends, and sorority sisters at celebrations and live concerts, or dining at a new restaurant anywhere in the world.

Ngozi Ahanotu with Hiihat

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
Current status and success and failures;
Their customer discovery to current pivot realization/journey;
The impact their company aims for;
The grand vision when their company is successful;
The unique use of machine learning and AI in their platform

Amir Helmy is a recent computer science graduate from Georgia Tech, and CEO of HealthAppy Tech. Since high school Amir has been interested in pursuing research related to epilepsy and mobile health, and published research related to mobile fall detection algorithms.

While in college he refined his computer science skills and specialized in research on mobile health algorithms and signal processing. He also published research in mobile health algorithm development. Most of these publications are specific to epilepsy and seizure detection.

Through Georgia Tech’s Create X startup launch program, Amir founded HealthAppy Tech was able to take the research to an initial prototype, called Epipal. Since then the Epipal patient prototype has over 10k+ downloads and has been received well by users

Epipal is now at a pivotal inflection point and has much room for innovation and improvement. After graduating this past spring, Amir has started working full time on the HealthAppy Tech project.He is excited to be taking his technical background and extensive research expertise in this domain in a commercial direction to lead this company to improve the lives of millions living with epilepsy and their families.

Amir Helmy with HealthAppy Tech

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
Vicious cycle of pay day lending;
Lack of equitable credit market for minorities and immigrants;
Credit;
Alternative methods of lending/borrow/credit;
Pay day lending industry/practices bogging down URM’s;
Different versions of P2P lending;
How social media and online forums are helping to create new ways of borrow/requesting a micro-loan

JT Trujillo, CEO & Founder at hand+sum

2023 MBA Candidate at Emory Goizueta Business School

JT Trujillois a first-generation Colombian-American as well as a first-generation college grad. He is married and has three little girls. He is a grad student at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. Coming from a banking/FinTech background and he leaned on his professional experience for class projects at GSU. Little did he know, he was onto something. Through this business idea/plan he wants to change the way under-represented minorities (URM) and the underbanked population perceive the financial industry and how they can access borrow money.

JT Trujillo with hand+sum

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
About FIND;
The hardest challenges

Abdoulaye Djire is currently a graduate student at Georgia State University getting his Masters in Information Systems. His entrepreneurial journey began as he was walking down the graduation ceremony to get his first degree. At that moment he realized the career path he was about to enter he could no longer see himself doing long term.

This led him to think long and hard about what his next steps should be. He realized a pain point that not only he experienced but several other people did too. He then created a social media platform and business around this core problem and that was the birth of his company, FIND. This newfound path also resulted in him entering higher education once again this time with the goal of gaining knowledge to increase the chances of his business succeeding.

The journey has been full of twists and turns but he is grateful to say they have garnered 1,000 users, 2,400 followers on social media organically, and over 800 posts on the platform thus far through bootstrapping. He is excited to gain more resources in the near future to grow the company and platform the way he envisions to make a truly lasting and positive impact in the world.

Abdoulaye Djire with FIND APP

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
The story of Curlnalyzer;
MSESF and how others can get involved;
The importance of accelerator programs

Christabel Ghansah is the Founder of Curlnalyzer. Curlnalyzer is a platform/app using AI technology to assess hair types/textures and customizing products and hairstyles for users.

Their goal is to promote accessibility to products and resources for people with naturally curly hair and challenge Eurocentric standards of beauty and professionalism.

When Christabel isn’t working on Curlnalyzer, she can be found at her 9-5 working in economic development for a city in Gwinnett County. She is a 3x graduate of Georgia State University and is currently a member of the Main Street Entrepreneurial Seed Fund cohort 3.

Christabel Ghansah with Curlnalyzer

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
Issues that their organization addresses;
Their organization’s key activities;
Their goals for Athleaders 360

Cordero Tanner is the Founder and Executive Director of Athleaders 360°. He holds a Master’s of Public Health from Georgia State University and a bachelor’s of science in Sociology for Virginia Tech. Tanner has over ten years of youth and community development in a variety of roles from coaching to being an outreach coordinator.

His public health experience has enabled him to develop a unique approach to sports. Using the socioecological model of health, Tanner looks at the complex interplay between individual, relationship, community and society to create a holistic approach to coaching and youth development that seamlessly incorporates the character traits of “discipline, grit, teamwork, and sportsmanship.” With this approach he not only concentrates on athletic performance, but social and mental wellbeing to equip athletes with the necessary tools to function on and off the field.

Cordero is a loving husband and dedicated father of a daughter and son, whom he is raising in Atlanta.

Cordero Tanner with Athleaders 360

Entrepreneurship is more than just starting your own business, it’s a mindset-a way of thinking and acting. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute at Georgia State University develops business leaders who possess the knowledge, skills, and confidence to develop, scale, and deliver products, services, and solutions to real-world problems.

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