Meet Our Judges for Genesis Block Demo Day 2020 Cape Fear MED Week
The 2020 Cape Fear Minority Enterprise Development Week is only days away featuring more than 25 great programs for registration. Genesis Block Demo Day is Tuesday, October 6, 2020 from 6pm-8pm at the Genesis Block community workspace in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina.
Genesis Block Demo Day is a program designed for Minority Women Business Enterprises to present their companies to a room full of selected investors, judges, peers and other members of the community. We are excited to introduce our panel of esteemed and accomplished judges for the event.
Isabela Lujan has been in the real estate business for over 10 years. Lujan serves as the Co-Chair of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce Latin American Business Council. She is also a Spanish Bilingual Residential and Commercial real estate broker.
Isabela has a degree in anthropology from the Universidad Central de Venezuela (Central University of Venezuela). “My goal is to help the LatinX community to start and strengthen their small businesses, and to open doors for the established and bigger LatinX businesses to the privileges of belonging to the most important business conglomerate of the region. My core value is to be a bridge for integration,” says Lujan.
Her professional memberships include the following:
▫️ Wilmington Chamber of Commerce / Latin American Business Council
▫️ Cape Fear Association of Realtors®.
▫️ Realtors® Commercial Alliance Southeastern North Carolina.
▫️ North Carolina Association of Realtors®.
▫️ National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP)
Talib Graves-Manns is a serial impact entrepreneur driven to create equitable communities. He is a former Google Entrepreneur-in-Residence and founder of CDFI-backed HBCU Entrepreneurship Center, Knox Street Studies and Black Wall Street Homecoming. A fourth-generation entrepreneur, Talib Graves-Manns embodies the self-described Blue-Blood Hustle — the notion that entrepreneurship isn’t just an aspiration, instead, it is what he was created to do.
While his family’s history of entrepreneurship was the catalyst for his passion to build innovative businesses, it is his experience as a serial entrepreneur that drives him. Legacy coupled with a desire to create real change for people from under-resourced communities, provides the foundation and fuel for his present-day work as a business owner, community builder and change agent. He is the co-founder of four businesses, including Partners In Equity, Knox St. Studios, a nonprofit serving entrepreneurs and youth in STEM, Point AB, a design centric consulting firm, Life on Autopilot, a luxury luggage brand, and Black Wall Street: Homecoming, a nonprofit focused on access to capital for minority entrepreneurs.
Talib’s commitment to entrepreneurship extends beyond having control of his own career and earning potential. He helps to build profitable and scalable businesses that also serve the needs of underrepresented communities — from students to entrepreneurs to the community groups that support them. Through mentorship and outreach, he helps the community by teaching, coaching and sharing his business acumen with existing and aspiring business owners. His work also focuses on increasing access to capital for innovative startups and traditional main street businesses. Launched in 2018, Knox St. Studios, a nonprofit serving entrepreneurs and youth in STEM.
Joe Finley has lived in Wilmington, NC since 2002 and is motivated by a desire to see true racial equity in our community. He is working with several local organizations in an effort to instill long-term economic and cultural change in our region. He is currently on the board of directors for the Cape Fear Collective, Friends School of Wilmington and the Northside Food Cooperative. Joe also supports several community initiatives that include; equity in education, entrepreneurship, Black history in Wilmington and public art.
Joe is a co-founder of CastleBranch and tekMountain, where he has held a variety of roles, including; Vice President of Sales and President. He is a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill where he majored in English literature. Joe, his wife Whitney and his children, Vivian and Luca, truly love the Cape Fear region and are committed to making it a better place for everyone.
April Scott is originally from Bristol, Pennsylvania; having relocated to Wilmington, NC in 1993. After graduating high school in Pennsylvania she decided to relocate to North Carolina, home of her parents. Her passion to help others landed her as a volunteer which led to her twelve year career at The Carousel Center for Abused Children where she was subsequently the Executive Director. While with the agency she was a 2012 award recipient of the Z. Smith Reynolds sabbatical award for her work in the non-profit sector.
She worked as a business development consultant in the private and non-profit sector while working her way through graduate school. She currently holds the position of Director of the Small Business Center at Brunswick Community College. She enjoys trying new recipes, traveling, dancing, gardening, volunteering with the youth, and family time.
One of her many favorite quotes is “Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you”, Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO.
We are excited to have this highly esteemed and accomplished business luminaries as our judges for Genesis Block Demo Day.
Browse the programs for 2020 Cape Fear Minority Enterprise Development Week here https://uncw.edu/diversity/medweek/.
