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Aligned with some major growth plans, New York-based ExecOnline closed a $45 million Series D funding round. Co-founded in 2012 by Stephen Bailey, Mark Ozer, Barry Goldberg, and Julia Alexander, ExecOnline provides executive education programs and training solutions certified by educational institutions. The company partners with business schools around the world to bring democratized access to leadership development at large companies. “We feel like we have a differentiated and compelling story having pioneered this space,” The company’s CEO Bailey told AfroTech in an interview. “We hopefully want to create awareness that there is a new way to develop leaders that can create much more equity outcomes at organizations.” This latest funding round was led by OMERS Growth Equity with participation from previous investors including Kaplan, Osage Ventures, NewSpring and ABS Capital Partners. ExecOnline plans to use the Series D to further develop its online platform, expand its...
Lowe’s CEO, Marvin Ellison, announced that the home improvement company will do its part in helping reboot the American economy by allocating $25 million in grants to small businesses owned by people of color. The fund aims to assist in the re-opening of businesses owned by people of color that were affected by the COVID-19 shutdown. “These are going to be minority businesses and other businesses that are now starting to reopen,” Ellison told CNBC’s Mad Money . “So we just want to continue to not only run a good business but also be a great corporate citizen in all of the communities that we operate in.” Earlier this year, Lowe’s also provided a $25 million fund to aid in the fight against the pandemic in which $10 million went to providing medical frontline workers with Person Protective Equipment (PPE). According to Black Enterprise , Ellison became CEO of Lowe’s in 2018 making him one of only four Black CEOs of a Fortune 500 company. Ellison believes in the small businesses of...
Adam Roosevelt adds yet another lofty title to his resume — CEO at 28. According to Black Enterprise , the Virginia native is a combat veteran having served two tours in Afghanistan and a term in NATO. He is also a politician who ran against and unfortunately lost to Democratic incumbent Alfonso Lopez for the 49th District of the House of Delegates in 2017. Plus, he also served as a contractor in cybersecurity and intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security. Roosevelt has since turned his sights on environmental health and technologies as he was just chosen to be not only the first CEO but the first Black CEO of SEM North America. “This business opportunity brings Adam Roosevelt as one of the few African American pioneers of eco-friendly environmental solutions that will disrupt multiple industries around North America and around the globe,” COO and founder Leslie Grant told Black Business . Founded in 2016, by Grant and John Jones, SEM aims to work with customers in the...