FELECIA HATCHER NAMED CEO OF PHARRELL WILLIAMS’ NONPROFIT BLACK AMBITION
Serial entrepreneur Felicia Hatcher, announced on social media that she will be the founding CEO of Black Ambition, a new initiative launched by Grammy Award-winning singer Pharrell Williams.
Felecia Hatcher is also the co-founder of Code Fever for youth coding and entrepreneurship education. Hatcher and her business partner Derick Pearson founded Code Fever Miami in 2014 to teach Black students how to code and build a diverse generation of technology workers. The duo also founded BlackTech Week; a national conference focused on bridging the gap between minority entrepreneurs and large tech insiders.
“Excited to lead this! Excited to be in a position to directly fund founders,” Hatcher shared on Facebook. More details about her new role will be forthcoming, she said. “After 7 years working to build Miami’s tech and startup community … it’s hard to leave your baby, so this is bittersweet,” she stated. “We built Florida’s first Black tech movement.”
The Miami-based nonprofit will fund and support projects and companies started by Black and Latinx founders through a series of national prizes. Black Ambition was created to fund projects spearheaded by Black Hispanic entrepreneurs. The organization will identify and directly fund promising founders who build tech, design, health care, and consumer product startups.
There are two prizes available for those who are eligible. The Black Ambition Prize is a tiered opportunity to compete for $1,000,000 and learn with a network of talented founders and business leaders across sectors. Ventures that have shown progress against the venture concept and have raised no more than $1M in dilutive funding will be eligible. The Black Ambition HBCU Prize is divided up into two tracks. In one, entrepreneurs will be eligible for up to $50,000 in funding, and in the other, entrepreneurs will be eligible for up to $250,000 in funding. Entrepreneurs in both tracks will be eligible for mentorship.
