Occupy Wall Street Proves Connecting Business to Community May Not Be an Option

Creative Business Leader Loretta Green-Williams

WMI:    Green-Williams & Associates’ philosophy is, “a community is only as strong as its businesses, and that businesses are only as strong as its community.” Why do you believe this and what are two to three key ways Green-Williams & Associates connects with community? 

LGW:  Our philosophy is about economic sustainability which can only take place with communication cohesions.  What has been problematic in today’s social constructs is that businesses are within communities that they have no relationship to.  Therefore there are no emotional tides to see a community flourish. Green-Williams  Associates develops strategic design analysis that is based on academic findings. We are able to construct frameworks that filter thoughts that aren’t usually at the business table.  Because we remain within a grass-roots formation, we are able to present communications for both sides of the fence. 

WMI:    If businesses were more connected to community do you think the events that led to the 2007 recession and Occupy Wall Street would have occurred? What makes you say this? 

LGW:  I wrote a piece at Academia.edu/lorettagreenwilliams on this very subject.  What we need to consider is that local businesses in Oakland, including Clorox Corporation, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, are right across the street from the Occupy Oakland location, yet there hasn’t been a public discussion related to Occupy Oakland from any of the downtown Oakland businesses. It’s as if there is a blackout.  Hmmm. 

WMI:    How does Green-Williams & Associates help companies develop their products as well as build international business alliances, and do you basically work with companies in the California area?  

LGW:  Green-Williams & Associates is an international firm.  Currently we are supporting clients in Nigeria, Guyana, and the Caribbean. 

WMI:    Tell us about some of the marketing and public relations services you offer clients? How do these services differ from offerings that have been on the market for years? 

LGW:  Well, as our website indicates (http://lorettagreenwilliams.com), we offer theoretical frameworks that design community alliance building.  We create Community Economic Sustainability.  Producing an image or speaking for the organization is not our primary objective, but we have been contracted to do so.   

WMI:    You also organize and operate Women of Concern Professionals (WOCP) and Strategic Conscious Networking (SCN). What inspired you to create these two organizations? 

LGW:  WOCP.SCN was developed as a LinkedIn group in December 2009 when I was attempting to locate a women’s group that had more bite to it.  I wanted to be a part of a group that did more than talk about their businesses; I wanted to be part of a group where women business leaders also talked about how they can engage their business or profession to establish social change. I have been involved with community activism, with my parents, since I was a child.  I believe we are placed on the planet to support one another, and this is my contribution to world community growth. 

WMI:    What’s on the horizon for Women of Concern Professionals and Strategic Conscious Networking? What do you have planned for the organization over the coming months and years? 

LGW:  I am so blessed with what is happening.  There was little activity on the LinkedIn site until the last seven months.  Since then, the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter has been considered the Model Design for WOCP.SCN.  We have established AM Power Networking that has been very successful in North Bay.  Beginning January, AM Power Networking will take place in Oakland, and we will be rolling out the concept in other cities in the San Francisco Bay Area.   

We have established an active membership which will allow social media members to engage with one another.  Through the social media site, members are developing local chapters.  Women have expressed interest in the UK, France, Guyana and Australia for chapter consideration.  We are also planning an International Conference slated for October 2012 in San Francisco.  Our theme “Making Change, Making Decisions” expresses our direction and passion to engage in our communities. 

WMI:    Have you always had a passion for business, even when you were a young girl coming up?  If not, please share with us an event that happened later in your life that caused you to jump, with both feet, smack dab into the throes of the business world. 

LGW:  My family is from the Caribbean (Jamaica and Cuba) and I was born in Harlem, New York.  All I know is how to make a dollar out of fifty cents.  I grew-up on strong work ethics which means, if you can’t find a job, make one.  I spent the past thirty years as a fitness professional, and decided to take all my connections and community activism skills to another level.  So I designed Green-Williams & Associates.   

WMI:    A March 31, 2011 “Women Owners Hit $1 Million Glass Ceiling” Wall Street Journal article reports that women owned businesses grew by 50 percent from 1997 to 2011. Impressive. However, revenues generated at women owned businesses remained fairly flat. In fact, only 1.8 percent of women owned businesses generated $1 or more in revenues in 2011, nearly the same percentage in 1997. Why do you think more women owned businesses aren’t breaking through this financial glass ceiling? 

LGW:  We need to reassess the “glass ceiling”.  Who are the stakeholders that benefit from women having limited economic access?  Then collectively, we will have to strategically speak to power in order to engage change.  We know this methodology works.  It is the same method that has brought down colonialism which is the systematic control or influence of a people for the purpose of financial gains.  How was it broken?  The intelligentsia, the thinkers.   

WMI:    What can women creative business leaders, community organizations and local governments do to help women push through this glass ceiling? 

LGW:  I believe this can happen by bringing in collective forces.  Study methodological constructs that can collectively make change.  Develop a strategy and know who the battle really belongs to 

WMI:    Who are some of the creative business leaders you admire and what is it about these leaders you most appreciate? 

LGW:  I truly admire my daughter, Dana Verde (http://danaverde.com).  Her strength and tenacity has given me motivation to press forward.  She took a year out of her life to save $10,000 in order to attend the London Film School in UK and graduated in 2008.  To watch her commitment, dedication and how she followed her dream was amazing.   

Prior to attending the London Film School, she graduated from The New School University and New York Film Academy.  She entered the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and was a finalist in the competition two years in a row.  Dana co-hosted a TV show on MTV called “Your Movie Show” as a film reviewer and film critic for VH1.  She is amazing.  I am so proud of her.  Now she has left all of that behind her and has just moved to LA to continue her pursuit as a screenplay writer and director.  Her courage motivates me.

I also admire Ida B. Wells-Barnett.  She was a tireless woman who doesn’t receive the attention that she so richly deserves.  It was she who brought WEB DuBois to the Niagara Movement, which established the NAACP.  It was she who first wrote about southern lynchings that spurred the NAACP to mobilize the famous Silent Protest of 1917 in Harlem.  She embraced Marcus Garvey when others were defaming his name. Less than five feet tall, she is a giant to me. 

WMI:    If you could improve one thing about the business world by simply snapping your fingers, what would you improve? 

LGW:  I’d improve pre-conceived notions.  If we would come to the table without pre-notions of the individual or the conversation, greater communication practices would take place.  I guess the finger snap would be acceptance.