Why I Said Yes to Mentoring the Next Generation of Black Founders

There are moments in your career when an opportunity lands and you know immediately that saying no is not an option. Being invited to join the Black Equity Organisation FTSE 100 Mentoring Programme as a mentor was one of those moments for me.

I am now working in weekly one-to-one sessions with Black founders who are building businesses across technology, fintech, healthtech, FMCG and more. These are early to growth-stage entrepreneurs with strong domain expertise, clear commercial ambition and a genuine drive to solve real problems in underserved markets. My role is to support them with strategic thinking, financial clarity, accountability and investor readiness, helping them translate vision into a business that can genuinely scale.

I said yes because I know what it means to be in a room where nobody looks like you. I spent years navigating corporate spaces where my presence was tolerated rather than welcomed, building businesses where the advice I needed was not always accessible, and learning hard lessons about money, strategy and resilience that nobody sat down and taught me. That experience is exactly what I bring to these sessions.

As a Chartered Accountant and business coach with over fifteen years of real business ownership behind me, I can sit with a founder on the numbers and on the narrative, on the cashflow model and on the confidence it takes to walk into an investor meeting and own the room. That combination is not always easy to find and it should not be a privilege reserved for those with the right connections.

We are one week in. The feedback from my first session has already confirmed what I hoped. This cohort is serious, focused and ready to do the work. I am genuinely excited to be a part of their journey.

If you are a Black founder or know someone who should be connected to the Black Equity Organisation's work, I encourage you to find out more at blackequityorg.com.