Abstract

Johnnetta is a Black female manager at a competitor of Goldman Sachs that recently launched its One Million Black Women initiative to support Black women entrepreneurs. Goldman Sachs will invest $10 billion over the next decade to advance racial equity and economic opportunities for Black women. Although Black women are the fastest growing group and entrepreneurs in the U.S. and were more resilient than other entrepreneurs during the COVID-19 pandemic, they face more barriers and challenges in achieving business success.

Johnnetta has an idea for another approach to groom and grow future generations of Black women entrepreneurs. Her ideas is to implement youth entrepreneurship programs in middle schools with high populations of students of color. At an early age, students will learn about entrepreneurship and gain hands-on experiences with starting and operating a business. Johnnetta's idea is to start a pipeline of business savvy women entrepreneurs. The goal for the next ten years is for each year to cultivate 1,000 middle school girls at 100 school to become entrepreneurs. At end of ten years, one million girls would be reached, as a pipeline of future entrepreneurs. Johnnetta called her program, "Planting 1000 seeds of entrepreneurs". Johnnetta is debating whether to pick this program to her employer or use her savings and professional connections to start a non-profit that would administer this program. Johnnetta knows of similar youth entrepreneurship programs in other states. Johnnetta's goal is to start in her state that does not have such a program and branch out throughout the U.S.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this case, students should better understand the following:

• Why supporting women entrepreneurs, especially women of color is important?
• What challenges and barriers that women entrepreneurs encounter, especially women of color?
• What programs and initiatives can address the disparities that women entrepreneurs encounter?
• What risks are associated with implementing new social programs like Johnnetta wants to create?

Theoretical Underpinnings

The Goldman Sachs program aligns with the Resource-based theory of entrepreneurship in which access to resources by entrepreneurs is an important predictor of opportunity based entrepreneurship and new venture growth. The Goldman Sachs program seeks to provide important financial resources to Black women entrepreneurs. Whereas, the Planting 1000 Seeds of Entrepreneurship program proposed by Johnnetta aligns with the Psychological theory of entrepreneurship in which an individual's character drive entrepreneurial motivations. Per David McClelland, the motivations of need for achievement, affiliation, or power are not inherent, but rather are developed through cultural and life experiences.

Background

In 2020, Melissa Bradley, 1863 Ventures Founder highlights the challenges for Black women entrepreneurs in obtaining access to affordable capital for business ventures. This issue persists despite recent trends that Black women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs.

About the Goldman Sachs Program

Rhonda Schaffler speaks with the CEO of Sistahs in Business, Aisha Taylor Issah, about the group's partnership with One Million Black Women and how the program helps black women entrepreneurs learn, grow and scale their businesses.

Discussion Questions

1. In terms of the following risks, discuss and explain what are top three most likely risks of starting this program as an employee at her company (put in rank order)?

• Financial Risk
• Strategic Risk
• Reputation Risk
• Liability Risk

2. What should Johnnetta do, start the program as an employee at her company or start as the founder/director of the non-profit to administer this program? Explain.