How this former teacher-turned-CEO has helped Black businesses reach over $8M in sales

How this former teacher-turned-CEO has helped Black businesses reach over $8M in sales – Face2Face Africa Dr. Lakeysha Hallmon (third from left) has helped black businesses succeed. Photo: Elevated Tour Dr. Lakeysha Hallmon is the founder and CEO of The Village Market, a community-driven platform that aims to improve the profits of black-owned businesses through seasonal marketplaces, e-commerce, retail, and commercial opportunities. The platform also helps Black businesses forge strategic partnerships with major companies like Target, Mastercard, Walmart, and AT&T, according to Forbes. Hallmon is also behind Elevate, an incubator program for black entrepreneurs that serves cities across the south and east coast as well as in LA. She has served over 1,440 companies and facilitated over $8 million in direct sales to black-owned businesses since 2016. Hallmon spent 13 years in traditional education as an English teacher before evolving into entrepreneurship. “I had a vision of creating a modern village that embodied a lot of the principles of what Black Wall Street represented – self-determination, group economics, and collective economic mobility for black people,” she told Forbes. “I still get to teach, but differently. Like all good teachers, I get to model my newly found love of economic mobility...