Black entrepreneurs continue to blaze forward in the business world. With big empires and industries to their names, it is hard not to think so.
If you are a budding entrepreneur, like many others out there, not knowing where to begin or start from, these stories of successful black entrepreneurs will place you far ahead of others and most importantly, they will motivate you and give you the push-forward.
Take a look at them and read more about them the most successful Black entrepreneurs on the planet.
Oprah Winfrey
The first person on our list is the media executive, television producer, talk show host, actress, and philanthropist, Oprah Winfrey.
Oprah Winfrey’s career didn’t start well. She was fired early in her career while working with a television station in Baltimore known as WJZ-TV. Her boss was quoted to have stated that she is unfit for television news and needed to be fired. Oprah, who didn’t let the words of her boss dictate who she would become, persevered and went on to start her own talk show which brought her to the limelight. Today, Oprah is worth $2.8 billion, according to Forbes, making her the richest black American on the planet.
Robert L. Johnson & Sheila Johnson
Robert L. Johnson (America’s first black billionaire) and Sheila Johnson (ex-wife) jointly founded the popular TV network Black Entertainment Television (BET) many years ago, a company of $2.9 billion in worth as at 2001, before their divorce having raised an audience of more than 70 million households. Today, they are one of the most successful black entrepreneurs on the planet.
Michael Jordan
The next person on our list is Michael Jordan or MJ (for short). He is the highest-paid athlete of all time and he is the only basketball player and athlete ever to build the most successful and lucrative career anybody could have built after retirement. It wasn’t all smooth sailing for him from the start, either. While he was a boy, he faced many rejections from coaches for being too short, despite his persistent interest in basketball.
Today, Michael Jordan is the CEO and founder of the famous ‘Air Jordan’ brand, a million-dollar business known for its coveted sneakers. That’s not all. Jordan also has many endorsements deal from different multi-international companies all around the globe including Coca-Cola, Gatorade, and many more. Net worth as of February 15, 2018, is $1.65 billion.
Janice Bryant Howroyd
CEO and founder of Act 1 Group, Janice Bryant, is the first African American woman to have generated over $1 billion dollars in annual revenue ever. Although today she doesn’t look like what she’s been through, she went through a lot before she could establish her feet in the business world. With $900 in her hand back then in 1976 when she just moved into Los Angeles from her hometown in Tarboro, today, she has added several zeroes to it.
