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From C Student to White House Award Winning CEO
Look past your circumstances and get creative!
Felecia is the CEO of Pharrell William’s Black Ambition Opportunity Fund, author of Genius Jam and the Co-Founder of the Center for Black Innovation. Felecia is an innovative powerhouse, personal transformation speaker, entrepreneur and author, who's work shapes the way individuals show up, are valued, and financially benefit from playing full out in the innovation economy. Companies like, Google, Spotify, Door Dash, Target, Samsung, and Etsy call on Felecia to help them empower their teams and shape their inclusive innovation strategies and empower their team to step into their Zone of Genius. Felecia has been featured on the NBC Today Show, MSNBC, The Cooking Channel, Wall Street Journal, and White House Champion of Change Honoree.
I WAS A “C” STUDENT IN HIGH SCHOOL WHO CREATED HER OWN LUCK...
As a “C” student in high school Hatcher beat the odds and won over $130,000 in scholarships to attend college by getting creative, and pushing past the negative advice of her guidance counselor who told her, she’d never make it to college. After high school, she used her experience and knack for personal marketability to start her first business called Urban Excellence as a freshman in college at Lynn University.
As a college student, Hatcher built and ran innovative college prep programs for companies like DeVry University, MECA, AMPS Institute, the YMCA,TED Center, Mount Olive Baptist Church and the Urban League.
After leaving college early, Hatcher faced many challenges, before building a successful career spearheading experiential marketing, product launch and social media campaigns around the country for tech companies like Nintendo, Sony, Stage Coach Island (Wells Fargo's 2nd life video game), Microsoft Wallgreens, PNC and food giant Little Debbie (Mckee Foods).
Prior to making the leap from the cubicles of corporate America, Felecia worked as a marketing executive as the front office marketing manager spearheading the 10th-anniversary campaign for the NBA’s Minnesota Lynx/Timberwolves, and as an experiential marketing/brand manager for Sony, Nintendo, and McKee Foods.
YES IT'S TRUE...
I FELL DOWN CHASING AN ICE CREAM TRUCK IN HEELS...
After falling flat on her face while attempting to chase an ice cream truck in heels, Hatcher started a gourmet popsicle and ice cream catering company in 2008 (the worst time to start a company) with her husband Derick Pearson. The company specialized in vegan friendly and spiked popsicles for events and retail and private label manufacturing. Again tapping into her knack for marketing Hatcher formed many strategic partnerships through her company Feverish Ice Cream using popsicles to help companies like Procter and Gamble, Paypal, Google, Air BnB, Universal Music, Adidas, West Elm, Jamison Whiskey, Whole Foods, Live Nation, Bacardi, JCrew, Capitol Records, Maker’s Mark, The US Census Bureau, The W Hotel, Playboy, Tom Cruise, and Vitamin Water promote their new products through her trucks, carts, social media networks and sponsored ice pop give-a-ways of private label and custom pops.
In 2012 the couple raised major VC funding and opened a Retail Store and large scale manufacturing facility. The company which Felecia ran for 7 years was dedicated to sustainability and innovation donating a portion of each Popsicle sold to charity as well as founding a youth entrepreneurship program called PopPreneurs in 2010 where Hatcher and her partner Derick Pearson taught kids in urban areas how to become entrepreneurs through ice cream carts and in 2012 they founded Code Fever which at the time taught teens and their parents how to become creators of technology. The couple sold Feverish Pops in 2015.
Founder of National Conference to promote inclusive innovation and rid communities of innovation deserts...
.Prior to Black Ambition, Felecia Co-Founded Black Tech Week and The Center for Black Innovation. Hatcher’s transformational work has been honored as a 2014 Obama White House Champion of Change for STEM Access and Diversity, Harvard Young American Leader, 2017 Comcast/Nationswell Tech Impact Allstar, Echoing Green Fellow, a Black Enterprise 2017 TechConnect Game Changer, and 2016 Innovator of the Week, Essence Magazine Tech Master. She has also been featured on the Today Show, Forbes, Bloomberg, MSNBC, and Grio’s 100 African Americans Making History. Supporters of her work include Knight Foundation, Comcast/NBC Universal, Morgan Stanley, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Ford, and others.
Hatcher's work in building inclusive innovation ecosystems has been featured in two Harvard Business School case studies.
Hatcher now serves as an advisor to early stage startups and major tech companies like Amazon and Spotify. Travels the world as a top requested Transformation Speaker, and directly funds and support diverse startup founders, as the CEO of Pharrell Williams organization where they have invested in 34 companies that have gone on to raise over 50M in funding!
It took me 10 years to write my first book and 6 months to write the 2nd SMH...
Hatcher is the author of 5 books The “C” Students Guide to Scholarships (Petersons), Start your business on a Ramen Noodle Budget (Petersons), Motivational Sh*T (grownup coloring book) FOCUSED Strategic Action Planner, Genius Jam, and Ebooks, How to become an Epic Expert, and Ice Pop University.
Books/Publications: Execution is Personal, Start a Business on a Ramen Noodle Budget" (Petersons), "Focused", and "Genius Jam".
White Papers:
50 years from now, as a result of the work we are doing today, my hope is we will no longer have to fight for the respectable amount of funding for Black and Latinx founders. The value and the ROI are clear.
Awards/Honors
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