Venturing Deep

Welcome to the “Venturing Deep” Podcast!  I want you to meet Antoine Woods Jr.!  Antoine is a tech entrepreneur, advisor, and investor at BRONZE. In short, he started as a programmer, became an entrepreneur, grew into venture capital, and now leverages social capital for others. Find out more about BRONZE Connect with Antoine Connect with the Venturing Deep Podcast Connect with Ama

I want you to meet Imani Ross!  Imani Ross is a born and raised Philly native and currently works as a Senior Consultant at a Big 4 Firm. She is an author, a public speaker with a background in Tech Sales, Business advisory, and a graduate of The George Washington University with a B.A in Political Science. While it all may feel seemingly unrelated, her background and experience in corporate and s...

Mitchella “Mitch” Gilbert is an inclusive product designer. She was a former elite athlete and Nike employee, so she is obsessed with women’s health and sportswear apparel. She attended the UCLA Anderson School of Management after earning a full scholarship to build her startup Oya Femtech Apparel. She is one of the first 200 black women to raise over $1M in venture capital and she graduated from...

 Ezra is the founder and managing attorney at Ezra Law. Ezra Law is a mission-driven law firm created and geared toward supporting Black & Brown-owned startups/businesses throughout their entire life cycle, we are talking corporate formation and governance, investment and contractual agreements, to even litigation. We talked about everything, from his upbringing, to where he went to college, w...

Our next guest is Rachel Wilson! Rachel has over a decade of global experience working across various industries including Food & Beverage, Automotive, Tech, Healthcare, Music, Fashion, and Media. As Principal and Head of Operations for Collab Capital (a VC Firm headquartered in Atlanta, GA) , Rachel runs the VC ops and fund governance processes of the fund. This includes investor relations, f...

Haley is a Principal at Hustle Fund VC. Prior to joining Hustle Fund, Haley worked for Apple, worked with bootstrapped and venture-backed tech startups and scaled the b2b SaaS content marketing agency Animalz as COO. Additionally, Haley started angel investing in 2020 to support founders from or supporting underrepresented communities and has invested in over 50 companies to date! Tune into this p...

 A Bermudian native, Isis is also a business owner & serial entrepreneur. She is a graduate of the #1 HBCU, Spelman College (some notable alumni are Stacey Abrams and Rosalind Brewer). Currently, she is the co-owner of House of Isis, a brand that she runs with her mother Gina. A Plant-based product line that provides health-conscious black women with access to non-toxic hair & skin care. I...

Garry is an award-winning startup founder and nationally recognized ecosystem builder working to build a more inclusive and equitable innovation economy. Garry is the Founder & Executive Director of First Founders Inc., a nonprofit organization on a mission to lower barriers to entry and increase the likelihood of success in the innovation ecosystem. Additionally, he serves as the Founder &amp...

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Venturing Deep! In this episode, we will be talking to Mitch Brooks. Mitch is the Co-General Partner of High Street Equity Partners where he invests in pre-seed and seed stage startups alongside his fellow General Partner, Tristan Wilkerson. High Street Equity Partners defines itself as a next-generation investment company that operates at the intersect...

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Venturing Deep! In this episode, we will be talking to Anthony Obi. Anthony was once a founder who knew very early in his entrepreneurial journey that he wanted to be on the other side of the table. Now, he is an Investment Associate at  Virginia Venture Partners investing in pre seed/ seed stage startups! It means so much that you stopped by to listen...

In this episode, we talk with Niani Tolbert of the #HIREBLACK Initiative. Niani is a marketer-turned-tech recruiter-turned founder of the #HIREBLACK Initiative. #HIREBLACK started as a viral LinkedIn post requesting help in offering 19 Black womxn to receive resume feedback on Juneteenth, and grew into an initiative whose goal is to help 10,000 Black womxn get trained and hired promoted in corpora...

Today we are talking about one of what I think is the greatest loves, and that is your friends… What you all do not know is that this is a topic that I have wanted to discuss for a long time. I started writing about this back in 2019, and of course I did not have the podcast then…but this has been a long time coming. I wanted to make sure that I addressed this in Q1, the first quarter…since it is...

Today we are talking about betting on yourself… In the previous “Annotations with Ama” we talked about “making plans” and if you have not checked out that episode already…make sure you do. In that episode, I left you with 3 suggestions for making plans. And the last one was “Believe that you can achieve your goals.” I can not stress enough how important that is to your overall success.  Along with...

Check out the first installment of my new segment called “Annotations with Ama". This is where you get to hear what I am thinking about currently. In my original series, “Venturing Deep” but in this segment we will go a little bit deeper with some of my ideas and thoughts. In this segment It could be anything from politics, the social climate, pop culture, an old podcast episode, my faith, pe...

 In this episode, we will be talking to Josh Ogundu. Josh is the CEO and Co-Founder of Heart to Heart. An audio first dating app that lets people tell the story behind the pictures in their profiles. Before that he was working as a Product Operations Lead at TikTok and has worked across media and communication tools as a product manager before that! We discussed his upbringing, diversity and inclu...

In this episode, we will be talking to Landon Campbell. Landon is the host of the popular groundbreaking podcast series “In Their 20’s”! He has spoken to some of the most talented people of our day and asks them how they made it through their 20's, He is also the events manager at “Inside.com” and is what some would call a master at networking! It means so much that you stopped by to listen a...

Welcome to the “Venturing Deep” Podcast. My name is Ama Kessie and I consider myself a lifelong learner. With that being said, I feel that if you search deep enough you can learn from anyone or anything. This podcast will take a look at remarkable founders, interesting people and topics. Thank you for rocking with me this season and please tune in for Season 2!!! Follow the host Instagram Twitter...

Welcome to the “Venturing Deep” Podcast. My name is Ama Kessie and I consider myself a lifelong learner. With that being said, I feel that if you search deep enough you can learn from anyone or anything. This podcast will take a look at remarkable founders, interesting people and topics. Thank you for joining me for the seventh episode of Venturing Deep! In this episode, we will be talking to Darr...

Welcome to the “Venturing Deep” Podcast. My name is Ama Kessie and I consider myself a lifelong learner. With that being said, I feel that if you search deep enough you can learn from anyone or anything. This podcast will take a look at remarkable founders, interesting people and topics. Thank you for joining me for the sixth episode of Venturing Deep! In this episode, we will be talking to Joshua...

In this episode we find out how one man wants to end poverty for our nation. The road may not be easy, but if one man can do it, it's Darryl. This podcast will take a look at remarkable founders, interesting people and topics. Thank you for joining me for the fifth episode of Venturing Deep! In this episode, we will be talking to Darryl Finkton, Jr. Darryl’s organization End Poverty Make Tril...

This podcast will take a look at remarkable founders, interesting people and topics. Thank you for joining me for the fourth episode of Venturing Deep! In this episode, we will be talking to Paige Finn. At the young age of 22, Paige is on track to becoming a published author, an emerging manager for a fund that has already raised over a million dollars, and an all around change maker in the VC spa...

In this episode we find out how Tajae Mills was able to make a pivot during the pandemic . Tajae runs a successful Air BnB business in Atlanta with his family, with a total of 28 properties and counting! His business is quickly expanding and in this episode we learn more about his journey to entrepreneurship. To follow his businesses head to: Peach Pad Stays Ga Luxury Rentals Host: Ama Kessie, @ke...

In the second episode of the Venturing Deep Podcast, Ama sits down with Amani Phipps. Amani goes into depth about his journey to success and about finding his way to venture capital. There were definitely some barriers to his success. Amani knows hard times and he stresses that things were not always easy and the path to success was not always clear. However, he never gave up! Now, he works to cre...

On the first episode of Venturing Deep, we sit down with Alexis Howard! She has been featured on platforms like yahoo finance and Chicago weekly. She is a personal finance coach that specializes in teaching young professionals how to build generational wealth. Alexis' brand "Financially Brave" has helped so many people reach financial independence.  Find her on Instagram: @financial...

Venturing Deep is a podcast that will take a look into , remarkable founders, interesting people, venture capital, and other pressing topics. Join host, Ama Kessie as we dive deep into an array of discussions. The hope is that after listening, you will come away using something you heard here to be your best self! The only request is that you not be afraid to venture deep!