Black Americans have played a crucial role in helping to advance America’s business, political and cultural landscape into what it is today. And since 1976, every U.S. president has designated the month of February as Black History Month to honor the achievements and the resilience of the black community.
While the many recognizes that black history is worth being celebrated year-round, we are using this February to shine a special spotlight on black leaders whose recent accomplishments and impact will inspire many generations to come.
These leaders, who have made history in their respective fields, stand on the shoulders of pioneers who came before them, including Shirley Chisholm, John Lewis, Maya Angelou and Mary Ellen Pleasant.
Following the lead of trailblazers throughout American history, today’s black history- makers are shaping not only today but tomorrow.
From helping to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, to breaking barriers in the White House and in the C-suite, following are black leaders who are shattering glass ceilings in their wide-ranging roles.
Mellody Hobson, first black woman to serve as chair of Starbucks board
In December 2020, Mellody Hobson, president and co-CEO of money management firm Ariel Investments, was named chair of Starbucks board of directors. When she officially stepped into the role in March, was the first black woman to hold this position.
The youngest of six children, Hobson was raised by a single mother in Chicago and credits her financially poor upbringing for driving her into the career she’s in today.
“It’s no accident I am in the investment management business because as a child I was desperate to understand money,” she said during the 2020 Center for Financial Planning’s Diversity Summit.
Hobson, who graduated from Princeton University in 1991, first joined Ariel Investments as a college intern and spent nearly two decades as the firm’s president before being named co-CEO in 2019. In addition to being the incoming chair of Starbucks board, Hobson serves as a director on JPMorgan Chase’s board and is a chairman of After School Matters, a Chicago non-profit that provides local teens with high-quality, after school programs.
Known for her philanthropic work, Hobson and her foundation, the Hobson/ Lucas Family Foundation, donated an undisclosed, large gift to her alma mater in Oct. 2020 to establish a new residential college at Princeton. Hobson College, tentatively scheduled to open in the fall of 2026, will be the university’s first residential college named after a black woman.
“My hope,” she told the university, “is that my name will remind future generations of students — especially those who are black and brown and the ‘firsts’ in their families — that they too belong.”
Sydney Barber, U.S. Naval Academy’s first black female brigade commander
In the U.S. Naval Academy’s 175-year history, there has never been a black woman to serve as a brigade commander. But all of that changed this January when Midshipman Sydney Barber stepped into the role.
“I would compare my job to a student body president at a civilian institution,” she told CNBC Make It, explained that she oversees roughly 4,000 midshipman at the Naval Academy.
Barber, who grew up in Lake Forest, IL, said she was inspired by her dad, who graduated from the academy in 1991, to attend the institution.
“My dad is someone who always believed in me early on and so he will say that he wasn’t surprised [by my position],” said the 24-year-old mechanical engineering major. “But, he started crying first of all on the phone just because he was so proud of me and the opportunity that came ahead.”
Barber explains that like many other black attendees who walked through the academy’s doors before her, her dad experienced racism during his tenure as a midshipman. Knowing her dad’s experience and the experience of countless other diverse leaders, the 24-year-old said she’s “extremely humbled” by her new opportunity and she doesn’t take the responsibilities of her role lightly.
“Ms. Janie Mines is another one of my mentors. She’s the first black female graduate of the Naval Academy,” Barber said. “She’s someone that I speak to often. And she talks about how, at her time at the Academy, she wasn’t even acknowledged or recognized by her peers being that it was a predominantly white male institution.” Mines, who graduated from the academy in 1980, currently manages her own business as an author and executive management consultant.
“So, I kind of take this as an opportunity to carry on their legacy,” said Barber. “I realize that they blazed the trail for me, and with that I feel a responsibility to continue blazing the trail for those who are coming after me.”
Jesse Collins, 53, first black executive producer of the Super Bowl halftime show
Roughly 100 million people tune into the Super Bowl and its halftime show in a given year. In 2021, the most-watched TV concert headlined by The Weeknd had Jesse Collins at the helm, making him the first black executive producer of the Super Bowl halftime show.
Collins began his 20-year career in TV writing, which eventually led to producing and becoming founder and CEO of his eponymous entertainment company. He’s known for producing some of the most memorable moments in awards show history, including his Emmy-nominated work for the 61st Grammy Awards in 2019, as well as scripted series, competition shows and news specials like last summer’s “John Lewis: Celebrating A Hero.”
In May 2020, Jesse Collins Entertainment signed a multi-year deal with ViacomCBS Cable Networks to provide production services for BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Paramount Network, TV Land and VH1. Through the agreement, Collins will produce theatrical films for the first time.
He sees his work as bolstering the current renaissance of Black art, he told Indiewire in June — a movement he aims to make long-lasting.
“This is not some affirmative action type of situation because at the end of the day, we are great storytellers, great actors, actresses, directors,” Collins said. “And we’re creating content that’s reaching audiences previously ignored, and a lot of it is crossing over. So, from a business standpoint, it’s going to make sense, and I think that we might look back at this 20 years from now and say, ‘This was a pivotal moment.’”
Nia DaCosta, first black woman to direct a Marvel film
When Disney’s Marvel Studios tapped Nia DaCosta in 2020 to direct the “Captain Marvel” sequel, she became the first black woman director to tackle the Marvel Universe.
Marvel is big business: Nearly two dozen previous Marvel Studios superhero movies collectively grossed over $22.5-billion at the global box office, including $1.1-billion for the first “Captain Marvel” movie.
Yet when Marvel handed DaCosta the keys to its billion-dollar franchise, the 31-year-old had only released one movie in theaters.
In 2015, DaCosta raised roughly $5,000 in a Kickstarter campaign to fund a short film, called “Little Woods,” about two North Dakota sisters who have to cross the Canadian border illegally to obtain medicine for their mother. DaCosta later expanded that into her first feature film in 2018, winning the Tribeca Film Festival’s Nora Ephron award for the best woman writer-director and catching the eye of Academy Award-winner Jordan Peele.
Calling DaCosta a “bold new talent,” Peele hired her to direct and co-write his much-anticipated horror sequel “Candyman.” Of DaCosta’s work on the movie, which hit theaters in August 2021 after being delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, Peele said: “She’s refined, elegant, every shot is beautiful. It’s a beautiful, beautiful movie.”
Coming off “Candyman,” DaCosta had to mull over the idea of directing another big film like “Captain Marvel 2” when she heard she was being considered for the job, she told The Wall Street Journal. But by the time Marvel made the offer, it was “an immediate yes.”
“I’m a huge Marvel fan, have been since I was a kid,” she told the Journal, “and I’ve always wanted to direct a Marvel movie.”
Aicha Evans, first black woman to run a self-driving car company
When Aicha Evans agreed to become the new CEO of autonomous vehicle start-up Zoox in 2019, she made history as the first black woman to run a self-driving car company. In 2020, she sheparded Zoox to a $1.3-billion sale to Amazon.
Now Evans is working with Amazon to realize Zoox’s vision of an autonomous ride-hailing service with its own fleet of fully self-driving electric cars.
Evans, who was born in Senegal and has a computer engineering degree from The George Washington University, previously spent 12 years at Intel. She’s “had to overcome a lot” as a black woman in tech, she told the Financial Times — it’s an industry (along with the auto industry) known for poor representation of women of color.
But Evans has also seen opportunity, especially in her ability to bring a different perspective and different ideas, she said.
In joining Zoox, Evans was drawn to the opportunity to “challenge the status quo” with an “autonomous mobility system built from the ground up,” and at a time when the auto industry is at an inflection point with self-driving technology.
“It’s one of those times where you get to catch the wave during the transformation and reinvention,” she told Automotive News.
Jason Wright, first black president of a National Football League team
In August 2020, Jason Wright became president of the Washington Football Team, making him the National Football League’s first-ever black president. At 38, Wright is also currently the youngest president of an NFL team.
He came into the position with intimate knowledge of the league, having spent seven years as a running back with the Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns and Arizona Cardinals.
Wright understands business as well: In 2010, he left the NFL to earn his MBA at the University of Chicago. From there, he spent seven years at McKinsey & Company, where he specialized in turning around struggling corporations. With the Washington team, one of his biggest challenges was to fix the franchise’s culture, which included handling allegations of sexual harassment and leaving behind the legacy of the team’s racist former name. It’s a tall order, but Wright is optimistic.
He spent his earliest days on the job meeting with employees, gathering facts and developing a plan of attack. He’s committed to making changes and says the team’s owner, Dan Snyder, has given him the leeway to do what he sees fit. That includes creating a human resources department and making the “psychological and emotional well-being” of his employees his No. 1 priority.
For Wright, this position is “an opportunity to bring together my two worlds in a really unique way,” he said on Good Morning America. “The fact that I happen to be Black and the most qualified person for this is a boost.”
Dana Canedy, first black person to head a major publishing imprint
In her own words, Dana Canedy’s career path “represents the inclusive progress that many people think is now in peril in America.” She became the first woman and the first person of color — not to mention the youngest — administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes when she took the helm of the century- old institution in 2017. And last year, she became the first black publisher of a major imprint when she was named senior vice president and publisher of the Simon & Schuster trade imprint.
Before overseeing Pulitzers, Canedy was a reporter for the New York Times for two decades and won a Pulitzer Prize herself in 2001 for “How Race Is Lived In America,” a year-long project that examined everyday race relations. “When I left my childhood home seeking to write about the country and the world, I had no idea that some of my most meaningful work would involve reporting on race and class,” Canedy wrote in 2017 after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, turned deadly. “And yet, they are subjects that keep emerging as a powerful theme.”
Canedy hopes to further explore those themes at Simon & Schuster and broaden the subject matter, authors and forms published (her own bestselling book “A Journal for Jordan” was published by Crown Publishers in 2008 and is being made into a movie directed by Denzel Washington). Though the industry faces many challenges, including its own racial reckoning, Canedy says she is excited about her new role and the possibilities it represents. “I’m somebody who lives with a lot of optimism, enthusiasm and passion,” she told the New Yorker in 2020. “And I don’t think there’s really anything that can rob me of that.”
Bozoma Saint John, Netflix chief marketing officer and first black C-suite executive at the company
Longtime marketing executive Bozoma Saint John made history in June 2020 when she was hired as Netflix’s chief marketing officer, making her the first black C-suite executive at the company.
Known as one of the highest- profile marketing executives in the industry, Saint John joined the streaming platform after working at top-tier companies like sports and entertainment firm Endeavor, Uber, Apple and PepsiCo. During her three-year tenure as head of music and entertainment marketing at PepsiCo, Saint John made a name for herself by spearheading endorsement deals with celebrities like Beyonce, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj and the late Michael Jackson.
As an outspoken advocate for greater diversity and inclusion in the C-suite and beyond, Saint John has used her platform to call on more companies to go beyond lip service when it comes to diversifying their workforce.
“I want to see more corporations put their money where their mouths are,” she said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell”. “Of course talk is cheap. Money isn’t cheap. Money goes to fuel defense. It goes to fuel action. So I want more corporations to put their money where their mouth is.”
Cheick Camara and Ermias Tadesse, co-founders of BlackGen Capital, Cornell University’s first black investment fund
Like many successful college students, Cheick Camara and Ermias Tadesse have taken full advantage of participating in many of the elite financial clubs and organizations at Cornell University. But when they looked around, they noticed they were the only black and brown members in the ranks of these clubs, which led the two juniors to launch the school’s first minority-owned investment fund, BlackGen Capital, in 2019.
“We created BlackGen Capital as a means to expand access to financial literacy education, resources that can empower students to get internships and learn about investing and budgeting and things like that,” Tadesse told CNBC Make It.
To help black and brown students attain access to financial education opportunities and resources, BlackGen provides its members with a 10-week finance training program, as well as handson experience in pitching and managing investment ideas. The organization takes a long-term approach to investing, focusing on smallcap companies that exhibit high growth, Camara said. Profits from the fund are reinvested, as well as used to support BlackGen’s events and initiatives, which include giving back through philanthropy projects.
Within its first year, about 70 percent of BlackGen’s roughly 64 members have secured jobs and internships on Wall Street thanks to corporate sponsors that include Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, Tadesse said.
While BlackGen has already shown early success, Camara said they still have big goals. “The issue of diversity and lack of access to resources and opportunities is not exclusive to just Cornell University, but rather, it’s an issue that plays across the entire nation,” he said, adding their next goal is to establish chapters in universities and colleges across the country.
