Our Phenomenal Women/Businesses to watch in 2021
It goes without saying that 2020 was a year like we’ve never seen. While the world has gone through massive change and adjustment, there are community heroes that this just wouldn’t be possible without. We wanted to show these incredible black women some appreciation, and let you know that they were definitely ones to watch in 2021.
Michela & Lois Wilson, founders of Saint Aymes
London born sisters Michela & Lois are known for their signature coffees with 23ct gold toppings and handmade artisan chocolates in one of the most enchanting ‘insta famous’ cafes in London called Saint Aymes. Both sisters were selected from hundreds to represent Virgin Start Up as Virgin Startup Ambassadors. The two amazing entrepreneurs have an amazing story that has inspired us on what it takes to become a luxury brand as well as the sacrifices and resilience needed throughout entrepreneurship. With roots from Barbados, Lois and Michela have used their story to pioneer the luxury market.
Follow the ladies on Instagram: @saintaymes
Paula & Cherry Francis — founders of SuperFoodLx
Paula and Cherry -mother and daughter team who are the Founders and Formulators for every single SuperFoodLx product.
They are passionate about health and wellbeing and supply natural organic products and supplements for hair, skin and nails after a combination of stress and poor quality hair products Paula had used in the past causing extreme hair loss.
Cherry and Paula are passionate about educating people about hair and wellness. With the duo having background as a nutritionist and nursing with over 45 years experience, they have used this as part of their story to create and combine their knowledge on building a vegan, cruelty free product. We love the strong bond of a mother and daughter, and their story has truly inspired us.
Follow Cherry and Paula on Instagram: @superfoodlx
Lenique Louis — founder of Lenique Louis Jewellery
Award-winning jewellery designer and artist Lenique Louis is highly celebrated for her beautiful pieces of hand crafted jewellery. Lenique Louis is celebrated in a number of publications, including Vogue and has had celebrities wearing her jewellery globally as well as some local homegrown talent, including: Ellie Goulding and Ella Eyre. Lenique has inspired us with her gift of artistry as well as how she has given back to the community through reaching out and trying to support other creatives especially people in colour where possible through a group called Black Creatives Unite on Facebook.
Follow Lenique on Instagram: @leniquelouisjewellery
Amina Smith Gul — Black Minds Matter
Amina’s energy and passion to help young people take care of their mental health was infectious. Earlier in the year we featured Amina on an IG live and heard about her story and why she was so passionate for change. She is a strong phenomenal woman for sure that inspired many people on that live we did and her ability to continuously take action in protecting the community was truly applaudable.
Follow Amina and Black Minds Matter on Instagram: @blackmindsmatterofficial
Carlene Coward — Cisco
Head of the Cisco black network in the UK. She has worked tirelessly to pull in the best black speakers in the country to inspire people, she creates so many safe spaces for people to share there most intimate thoughts and does so much fundraising to support black charities in the UK.
Connect with Shirene on LinkedIn
Lydia Sessanga — Metropolitan Police
Detective in the met police for the past 21 years. She is one of the leads of Female genital mutilation and continues to lead the force about the importance of this topic whilst consulting with many other police forces in the countries for how to spot this and stop it from happening domestically as well as abroad.
Connect with Lydia on Instagram
Shirene Torrance Dodd — Performance Coach and Consultant
Performance coach and consultant. She is very passionate about the progression of black women in male dominated fields to showcase their ability whilst providing psychological support. An avid supporter of all things mental health, she is tireless in her support of others.
Connect with Shirene on LinkedIn
Liz Adekunle — Archbishop of Hackney
Liz has done so much to improve the quality of lives in east London through Faith and self esteem coaching. She has achieved high success herself to show the way to her peers and continues to elevate in her field to be the best positive representation that she can be.
Find out more about Liz and her work here: https://www.london.anglican.org/directory/liz-adekunle/
Shannie Mears — Co founder of the Elephant Room
Shannie is the co-founder & head of talent at The Elephant Room alongside iris worldwide’s Former CEO Dan Saxby which has been going since 2017. She has previously assisted on supporting brands such as Adidas and Britvic to find talent for global commercials, not only has she been the face of the official U.K campaign by Linkedin. Her passion to lead and change the industry has led her to where she is now, not only was she named 35 under by Management Today but she is also Future female for Adweek 2020.
Connect with Shannie on LinkedIn and Instagram: @shannieloves
Annie Gibbs — Founder of Amour Destine
Annie is the founder of Amour Destiné, is a community interest company that aims to improve the socio–economic status of women born of African & Caribbean heritage in the UK.
They aim to achieve this by helping women affected by, but not limited to bereavement, mental health issues, domestic abuse & sexual violence, immigration problems and care experience, work towards building the lives they desire.
Follow Amour Destine on Instagram, and Annie on LinkedIn
Abiola Bello — children’s and young adult Author
Abiola is a children and young adults author. Her second book Emily Knight I am…Awakened was nominated for the Carnegie 2019 and winner of London’s Big Read 2019. In 2018, Abiola won the London Book Fair Trailblazer Awards 2018, which really cemented her place in publishing. This year, she released the third book in her series Emily Knight I Am…Becoming.
Abiola is also the co-director of two publishing houses — Hashtag Press and Hashtag BLAK, a publishing house for underrepresented voices. She also co-runs The Author School and iNK self-publishing services with Helen Lewis as well as the founder of The Lil’ Author Skool (The little BIG Book Competition for young writers).
Connect with Abiola on LinkedIn and Instagram
Jainaba Jallow — Co-creator of Fruition X
Jainaba Jallow is an incredibly resourceful and community-driven professional with 17 years’ experience working closely with and advocating for vulnerable and aspirational young people within the social care sector.
Working with numerous local authorities and private charities within the UK: from managing youth centres, to working with at-risk individuals, gang work and later youth participation, social inclusion as well as facilitating and managing one of the country’s youth parliaments and local young Mayors. In recent times she has transitioned into business and investments, mainly concentrating on agricultural developmental projects in The Gambia.
Jainaba has now combined her passions for developing and inspiring young people, with her passion to support and ignite innovation in pan-African development in all sectors to co-create FruitionX: who’s ethos is to empower young people on their journeys to becoming the future business leaders of their generation, both in UK and on the continent.
Follow Fruition X on Instagram @fruitionx_social and check out their website
