Because Black women can drive big rigs too!

When it comes to the $800 billion trucking industry, women are often left out of the conversation. The Leading Ladies of Logistix are using their platform to change this.

Samantha Smith, Tawana Randall, Tristen Simmons, and Vanessa Gant created the organization to not only empower businesswomen of the transportation and logistics industries but to also educate and create opportunities for them.

“I was just looking to connect with other women in the industry that either had trucking companies or worked within dispatch or broker freight,” said Smith in an exclusive interview with AfroTech.

“It’s definitely more of a value when you have everyone that can collectively come together and provide different pieces of the industry and different types of values from the industry and then mentor other women who wish to join the trucking industry,” Randall added.

Each of the Leading Ladies of Logistix offers a different asset to the organization as a whole.

“I bring in the finance component, along with some years of industry knowledge,” said Gant. “I work to help women get their finances together so that they are able to get the funding needed to run a successful business.”

“We are the minority in transportation, it is male-dominated,” she continued. “So anything that we can do to prepare ourselves to be able to make sure that our businesses are sustainable is definitely a plus for us.”

Simmons also chimed in to add that women coming together makes anything that they face in the industry less difficult.

“When one woman goes at something alone in this industry it may be more difficult,” she said. “We consider ourselves a minority women organization and so when they see us together, you can bet that we’re using all of our experience and knowledge to ensure that there’s no woman left behind. We’re much stronger as a unit.”

The ladies definitely back up everything that they’re talking about with an annual event each fall to help provide women with the mentioned resources to excel in the trucking business.

To date, they have mentored more than 2,000 women in the industry.

This fall, they will hold their 3rd Annual Transportation Networking Conference in Atlanta GA, Nov. 4-6.

Click here for more on The Leading Ladies of Logistix.