Black female executives offer career advice to those who follow in their footsteps

Black female executives offer career advice to those who follow in their footsteps

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In honor of Black History Month, CNN Business asked three of the highest-ranking black women in the American business world to reflect on their career journeys and give advice to those who want to follow in their footsteps.

Jasmin Allen, SVP, Hennessy, VS.

Jasmin Allen, SVP, Hennessy, USA, in Must Hennessy USA:

Hometown: Alexandria, Virginia

Education: BS in Finance at the University of Virginia (2002). MBA from Duke University (2008)

Specialty: Marketing

Industry: Luxury goods, spirits

Career advice: “It’s OK for you to make decisions in your career, even if it’s not popular. If you feel in your heart that the job or that path is for you, you should go for it, because no one knows you better than you.”

Allen made history in December when she was elected head of U.S. operations for Hennessy, becoming the brand’s best black manager. She is now responsible for the maximum image, equity and profitability for the popular line of business.

Allen has spent most of her career developing and implementing marketing strategies to sell alcohol and soft drinks. Her tenure in Must Hennessy USA, the U.S. sales and marketing division representing LVMH wine and spirits brands, began in 2016 as brand director for Belvedere vodka, and the company said Allen has launched several successful campaigns that make the brand has grown. She also spent more than eight years at Coca-Cola, where she designed custom Dasani bottled water packaging for the 2010 Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup.

Allen’s latest promotion came after a roller coaster year for both Hennessy and his parent company, LVMH (LVMHF), which hit big domestically and internationally when the covid-19 pandemic caused the closure of retail stores, pubs and restaurants selling products sold by LVMH. The spiritual brands of the conglomerate, with Allen’s help, led its setback during the second half of 2020.
Both LVMH and the larger luxury goods industry have been criticized for years for using black cultural themes and celebrities to market products, while no longer employing black fashion designers and business people. Throughout her career, Allen says she has become accustomed to being one of the few, if not the only, black faces in the room, but she has never been deterred by her goals. She gives advice that her father gave her in high school when she aspired to become her school’s first black senior class president, because she had to help her persevere despite institutional adversity.

“My father told me, ‘Jasmine, just because there never was, does not mean there can not be,'” she said. “This advice from him sums up my approach of black woman wanting to come up.”

Bonita C. Stewart, VP of Global Partnerships, Google

Bonita C. Stewart VP of Global Partnerships, Google:

Hometown: Denver, Colorado

Education: BA in Journalism at Howard University (1979). MBA from Harvard Business School (1983)

Specialty: Global Partnerships

Industry: Tech

Career advice: “We need to redirect more black women to profit and loss responsibility towards cost areas (such as HR and operations) earlier in their careers. We also need more sponsors to offer the ‘stretch’ assignments that drop careers through unique learning experiences. ‘

Stewart is a proud Howard University who in 2012 became the first black woman to serve as vice president at Google. Since 2016, she has led Google’s global partnership team – managing search, mobile applications, broadcasting, commerce, news, telecommunications and domains for the largest US publishers.

Stewart has won many prestigious awards over the course of her career, spanning more than four decades, although she acknowledges that business was not her original career choice.

“[My dream was] to become a broadcast news journalist until I discovered business through my underage business and served as advertising manager for Howard’s school newspaper, the Hilltop, “Stewart told CNN Business. After that, I made a choice to attend either a law school or a business school. [I] chose a business school for greater career option and the opportunity to run a business and make my own way. ‘

Stewart’s first taste of the tech world came in 1979 when she started working as a marketing representative for IBM. She joined Google in 2006 after a successful automotive tournament with DaimlerChrysler AG, which helped Chrysler’s $ 400 million advertising and marketing business and in 2005 won an Interactive Marketer of the Year award from Advertising Age.

Her long list of career accomplishments includes leading Google’s Howard West technology exchange initiative in 2015. Google worked this year to further strengthen its partnerships with Howard and other HBCUs after coming under fire in December for being one of the leading AI researcher Timnit Gebru and former diversity recruiter April Curley. Both Gebru and Curley are black women who have accused the company of cultivating a hostile work environment.

Stewart and Google did not respond to requests for comment on Gebru and Curley’s allegations, but Stewart said the company’s emerging evolution as a more diverse team in 2020 was one of its proudest achievements.

“As a black woman, I worked most of my career in men’s operations,” Stewart said. “Although it was a unique challenge, I was very comfortable being the pioneer and making a path for others. I gave courage in every step.”

Susan Chapman-Hughes, EVP, Digital Capabilities, Transformation and Operations, American Express, declined in November 2018.

Susan Chapman-Hughes, EVP, Global Digital Capabilities, Transformation and Operations, American Express:

Hometown: Cincinnati

Education: BS in engineering at Vanderbilt University (1990). MBA from the University of Wisconsin (1998)

Specialty: Digital transformation and strategic leadership

Industry: Financial Services

Career advice: “Be really excited about the opportunities ahead. Know that you need help to make this happen. Be humble enough to get feedback and get the help you need to make it work. There is no way I can sit on the seat without the help I had. ‘

One of the career-changing moments in Chapman’s life came in 1995 when she won an essay competition organized by the Executive Leadership Council, a pipeline organization for emerging black business leaders, and was invited to a national honors symposium to meet some of the senior members.
At that meeting, Chapman and her fellow winners met some of the most successful black executives in the country, including Ursula Burns, who later became Xerox CEO, and Kenneth Chenault, who later became CEO of American Express, where Chapman’s career later flourished.

“We met all these black drivers, which was phenomenal because so many of us have never been exposed to it,” Chapman said. “It enabled me to start developing relationships with so many of them where they guided me and gave me mentorship and advice and advice when I started navigating through it.”

The contest winners and managers of the c-suite remained committed and continued to establish a global black leadership network now known as Calibr.

Chapman says black business people can certainly have mentor relationships with people who are not African-Americans, but having black mentors is also the key to their success.

“There is nothing like someone who has walked a mile in the shoes you want to walk in,” she said.

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