New Entrepreneurs - African American business persons

Ebony, Jan, 2001 by Charles Whitaker

A corps of savvy CEOs blaze bold paths in the new millenium

EVERYONE wants to be his or her own boss, but for too long, the dreams of would-be Black entrepreneurs were constricted by lending institutions and other naysayers who refused to put faith or money in all but the most typical Black businesses--small stores and chicken shacks.

But a new group of Black entrepreneurs, some of them college students, is changing the business landscape. Smart, sophisticated and fired up by their faith in God and faith in self, they are carving out territory in new fields and heightening the profile of African-Americans in others.

The seven individuals featured here are representative of that new breed. Some are ambitious whiz kids surfing the Internet and hip-hop waves to business success. Others are seasoned professionals who gave up security and big salaries to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.

All are serious Brothers and Sisters blazing new paths in a new century.

MARTHA WILLIAMS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, STYLEMASTER CORP.

THIRTY-one years ago, when Martha Williams, an unskilled high school graduate, got a minimum-wage factory job at a plastics company, all she wanted to do was make a living. To her surprise, she became fascinated with the process of making plastic containers. "You put these little pellets into an injection machine and the mold would open and these 12 containers would come out," she says. "I thought that was just amazing." She read everything she could about the process and worked her way up from machine operator to general manager of the entire operation.

When the company was sold and she realized that her dream of becoming a vice president for the new owners would not materialize ("I was a Black woman in an industry that is very much dominated by White men"), she decided that the only way to go was to start her own company.

In 1991, after a difficult search for investors, she found some partners, poured in $65,000 of her own savings and launched StyleMaster, making her the first African-American woman to open a plastic molding company in the United States. Today, StyleMaster is one of the leading manufacturers of plastic storage containers in the country, with an estimated $32 million in sales and alliances with Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart and other national chain stores.

A self-taught engineer, Williams, 47, designs practically all of the containers StyleMaster makes. Her first inspiration was the creation of a large, plastic case in which to store Christmas ornaments. "I collect ornaments, and I would get so frustrated at the end of the season when you couldn't get them back in the little boxes they came in," she says. "So I thought, what if you had a container to keep your ornaments in?"

The first containers were a hit, and Williams went back to the drawing board, designing containers for everything from wrapping paper to sweaters.

In 1994, after tour successful years in business, Williams saw profits dip. Her partners, who disagreed with her vision of how to weather the storm and grow the company, pulled out, and StyleMaster was forced into bankruptcy.

But Williams persevered. In 1997, she found two new investors with whom she was able to establish a more compatible working relationship. She retains a 51 percent stake in the business and is clearly its driving force. Even in 1998, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent treatment, she kept up a frantic pace at the helm of her company, scheduling her chemotherapy treatments on Friday's so that she could remain in the plant during the week.

In January, the company 400 employees will move to a new 1.4 million-square foot plant on a 63-acre lot on Chicago's South Side. It is a facility Williams is especially proud of. "When I started in this business, I had to make a four-hour commute each clay because there were no jobs in the city," she says. "I always said that if" I ever had a chance, I wanted my company to be in the city so that the people who needed these jobs could get to them.

Every step in the growth of SyleMaster has been educational, Williams says. And while she also credits her 13-year-old daughter Jessica and longtime companion Clarence Jefferson with providing a hit of stability through the highs and lows of a cancer scare and building a multimillion-dollar company, she says that the most important lesson she's learned through it all is to have faith in the power of your own ideas.

"You have to bring passion to a new business," she says. "It's the passion that keeps you going out and pushing when things look bad and when everyone else says it's an impossible dream. I love what I'm doing. I work hard at it, but it's fun."

DAMON DASH, CEO AND FOUNDER, ROC-A-FELLA ENTERPRISES

YOUNG, brash and undeniably urban are words that easily describe both Damon Dash, co-founder and CEO of Roc-A-Fella enterprises, and the multipronged company he heads with his partner, rap star Shawn (Jay-Z) Carter.

Since its launch in 1995, Roc-A-Fella has become a major force in the marketing of urban culture. The record label, a joint venture with Def Jam Records, has produced eight albums that have reached either gold or multiplatinum status. The clothing line, which is estimated to have done $100 million in sales in 2000, is threatening to rival Russell Simmon's Phat Farm and high-profile lines by designers such as Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. The company's film division, which was founded in 1998, has produced two reasonably successful, straight-to-video efforts -- Streets Is Watching, a semi-autobiographical movie based on songs by Jay-Z, and the concert documentary Hard Knock Live Tour.