Mesa Woman Honored For Helping Black Entrepreneurs

by KAYRA SENER.

Angela Garmon is changing Black entrepreneurs’ fate in Arizona.

Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, a cancer diagnosis and Arizona’s race-neutral business environment, the Mesa woman’s coaching business has flourished.

Garmon in 2016 founded ARG Coaching & Consulting Group LLC, which provides individual and group executive coaching, helps companies with strategic planning and organizational and leadership training.

In 2021, she founded a nonprofit, ARG Cultivators Community, to mentor emerging minority entrepreneurs, encouraging them to view every challenge as a chance for change and helping them bridge the wealth gap confronting minority- and women-owned businesses.

Recently, she received the Trailblazer award for “her impact on the advancement of black-owned businesses in Arizona” from the Phoenix chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.

Not long after it was founded, Garmon’s nonprofit received “one of the largest grants of its kind to develop and launch the SEE ME Program, where they’ve supported the growth of close to 100 businesses in the past three years,” according to the coalition.

The SEE ME program provides mentoring, financial education, business development and capital investment to Black-owned businesses. Garmon also has developed a spin-off that teaches teens business fundamentals and how to build a brand.​

“Black women continue to face significant economic disparities related to pay equity, business growth and wealth accumulation,” said Donna Williams, president of the coalition’s Phoenix chapter. “Efforts to redress the harm of long-standing discriminatory practices are under attack nationwide, but our commitment to advocate for the well-being of Black women and girls remains strong.”

Williams said Garmon is part of a growing line of “champions of economic empowerment.”

In an interview, Garmon said she is honored that her work was recognized.

In supporting the minority-owned businesses, she aims to “show them that they have the power within them” and “help them see the opportunities the world presents to them.”

Garmon said unique challenges confront the minority entrepreneurs in Arizona.

“Because Arizona is race and gender-neutral, there is no focus on ensuring that minority-owned enterprises grow,” she explained, adding that this neutrality prevents people from understanding the full scope of the wealth gap of the minority groups.

“What we don’t measure doesn’t grow”, she said.

During her career, Garmon said that she was personally affected by race and gender neutrality.

“Arizona ecosystem isn’t necessarily as friendly for Black-owned businesses,” she said, recalling how a business professional “asked me to consider changing the face of my business because people are not used to doing business with people who look like me.”

Garmon added that this initially pushed her to work outside of Arizona for a few years in states that were more intentionally hiring Black-owned businesses.

“Breaking those barriers, letting the organizations know that I have the comparable capability, if not far better than our white barriers” was Garmon’s biggest challenge in Arizona.

“It’s that constant challenge I have to prove myself more often than others,” she added.

Garmon prefers to use the word “change” over “challenge.”

“When we navigate through seasons of change, we can do one of two things: We can either focus on the obstacle or the opportunity that change   brings.”

Two years after she founded her business, Garmon was diagnosed with breast cancer. Two years after that, the pandemic hit the United States.

Garmon said that her journey was “like a rollercoaster ride.”

“One thing that I’m proud of is that in 2018, I was able to double my revenue,” she said. “In 2021, coming out of COVID, my revenue was over 600%.

Garmon said that the idea of starting her own firm came from a major change in her life. Before 2016, she had worked in the hospitality industry for more than 15 years. Due to an acquisition in the hotel where she worked, she lost her job.

“I had made my way up to the ranks of executive level and I was about to transition into a C-Suite role,” Garmon said. “That’s when I realized that there was nothing stable about corporations or that to create a stable life, you have to work at an organization.”

Garmon became the first entrepreneur in her family.

“My parents taught us that the only way to survive and create wealth was to work for somebody,” she said.

The concept of entrepreneurship was new to Garmon and her family when she started in 2016.

She said that her parents had kept asking “When are you going to get a job?”

She had to remind them “I already have a job!”

Garmon said she wants to offer support to entrepreneurs who are just starting out because “I didn’t want anybody to feel alone.”

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See Original Article at East Valley Tribune