Last week, I officially graduated from the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women: Black in Business program. While the milestone itself is worth celebrating, what matters most is how this experience reshaped my approach to service-based business leadership. It sharpened how I think as a CEO, strengthened the foundation of my business, and gave me clearer direction as I step into the next chapter of Sparkes Event Solutions.
Stepping Fully Into the CEO Role
Like many service-based founders, I built my business by doing the work first. I was the operator, the strategist, the executor — and for a long time, that worked. But this program pushed me to fully claim my role as CEO.
Being a CEO means leading with clarity. It means separating emotion from decision-making. It means understanding not just what is happening in your business, but why — and where it’s going next.
That shift required me to stop operating purely from instinct and experience and start anchoring my decisions in data.
Why Knowing Your Numbers Matters in Service-Based Business Leadership
One of the biggest takeaways from this program was simple, but powerful: know your numbers backwards and forwards, and be confident standing in them.
Knowing your numbers isn’t just about reading a profit and loss statement. It’s about understanding your margins, your cash flow, your pricing model, and the true cost of delivering your services. When you know those details deeply, everything changes.
You price with confidence.
You negotiate from a position of strength.
You plan with intention instead of guesswork.
Most importantly, you stop making reactive decisions and start leading proactively.
For me, this clarity has already influenced how I think about growth, staffing, partnerships, and the types of opportunities I say yes — and no — to.
Leadership Is Sharpened in Community
Another powerful aspect of this experience was the community. Being surrounded by women who showed up prepared, asked hard questions, and pushed themselves week after week raised the bar for all of us.
The cohort wasn’t about comparison — it was about collective growth. Watching other founders wrestle with similar challenges reinforced that leadership isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about being willing to do the work.
I’m deeply grateful to the Goldman Sachs team, the instructors, advisors, and mentors who invested their time and expertise into this program. Their guidance was practical, direct, and rooted in helping us build sustainable businesses — not just successful ones.
Looking Ahead
Graduating from this program doesn’t feel like an ending. It feels like an acceleration point.
I’m excited to continue this journey as part of the Goldman Sachs alumni community and to contribute back to the program as a growing, successful business owner and leader. The opportunity to give back — from a place of experience and results — matters to me.
I’ll be sharing more reflections in the coming weeks, but for now, I’m proud of the growth that happened here. The kind that sharpens leadership, strengthens confidence, and positions a business for long-term success.
Onward.
