Kristiana Alexander is the Director of Consumer Insights & Innovation for Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) In this role, Kristiana provides consumer insights and innovation support for select DMI strategic partners, both domestic and international. She also focuses on DMI’s Food & Beverage trends work, bringing continuous monitoring and a deep understanding of global trends, and leveraging this work to design consumer-focused new product innovation.

Kristiana received her B.S. in Management with a concentration in Entrepreneurship and a minor in Finance from DePaul University. She's a big Chicago sports fan, avid traveler and always looking to checkout new restaurants in the city.

Designer, muralist, musician, radio host, documentarian, Pugs Atomz is a true Hip Hop renaissance man. His Art and Music has been featured in TV Shows, movies, commercials, sporting events and video games. He has been able to tour the world performing his deep catalog, solo and with frequent collaborator DJ Vadim (UK). His inspiration for all this stems from growing up in Englewood, where he would witness the performers on the Green Line trains and see the murals and Graffiti art in his neighborhood. Pugs is also a co Founder of The Englewood Arts Collective, and owner of Art and lifestyle clothing brand USUWE 93.

Martine is a registered nurse and certified case manager with a background in community organizing, street medic work, public health, and birth work. In 2014, she and one of her best friends started teaching community care response for gunshot wounds, and in 2015 founded Ujimaa Medics (UMedics) with fellow organizers in Chicago. UMedics is a Black health collective. We spread emergency first response, community care, and survival skills to access health justice and long-term wellness for all Black lives. Today, she is Executive Director and is grateful for the opportunity to build a future for this organization that she loves. She is a graduate of New York University and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She is also CERT-certified, a Level Four instructor with the Outdoor Leadership Skills Project, serves on the Patch App Advisory Team, and is a member of the Global Advisory Board for the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. She stays inspired by the legacy we will all leave behind for her daughter’s generation.

Vunzai T. Coen is the CEO of Coen Construction Services and Founder of CCSBuilds.org. Born in America and raised in Zimbabwe, she sees the world through a panoramic lens. Guided by her faith and life experiences, she founded her companies in accordance with the core values and strategies she has applied throughout her life and business career.

Vunzai is an innovative teacher and experienced business consultant who thinks outside the conventional text. Her business, professional, and personal mission is to inform, challenge, and motivate clients and students alike to fulfill their full potential for success in business, school, and life.

I am a Chicago Police officer within the 3rd district. I've been a police officer for 4 1/2yrs. My current position is a community policing officer.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at ITility LLC providing oversight and support for planning, execution, and implementation of program and projects to ensure stable and continuous company growth. Strategic leader on business strategies and program plans validating corporate values, goals, and objectives. Servers as direct program management for large IT projects supporting cloud software development, network infrastructure support, ITIL service design and operation supports, and cyber security operations. Over two decades of experience in major system and application modernizations for DoD clients as an Enterprise Architect and Electronics Engineer. Credentials with DoD Level III Acquisition Certification in Information Technology, Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), MBA in Technology Management, BS in Electronics Engineering, and BS in Applied Mathematics.

After briefly working in public policy and applied physics, I stumbled across my passion in cybersecurity. Working across United Airlines, The Mako Group and, now, CNA, I've had the opportunity to travel the globe and spend every day focused on one of the biggest challenges facing all companies: cybersecurity. I get to spend every day locked in a battle of 'good vs evil' and dreaming up the next big threat while devising the protections against it.

Chanelle Lacy is a curator, cultural producer, arts professional, and Reiki Master. She serves as a Director at Kavi Gupta. Passionate about bringing ambitious, rigorous, and challenging projects to life, Chanelle works closely with artists both emerging and established to expand not only their creative practices, but the art historical canon. Chanelle leads the gallery’s programming efforts and ensures that the gallery’s mission to amplify underrepresented and marginalized voices remains at the core of operations through expansive exhibition ideation and execution, strategic fair placement, advantageous partnerships, and institutional development. Recently, Chanelle curated Realms of Refuge, a group exhibition focused on the alchemical processes that enable us to transcend our earthly entanglements to reach higher states of consciousness, embodiment, and expression. In 2022, she partnered with musician and activist Vic Mensa on SKIN + MASKS, the blockbuster exhibition centering works by contemporary artists striving to understand and express the meaning of identity not from the vantage point of White gaze, but from the perspective of individual realities. SKIN + MASKS went on to travel from Kavi Gupta to Chicago’s famed Magnificent Mile for a six-month pop-up exhibition presented in partnership with EXPO Chicago and the City of Chicago.

In addition to curatorial work, Chanelle has spearheaded various philanthropic efforts in Chicago and served on the board of the Chicago Mosaic School. Chanelle is the founder of On Ancestral Wings, a creative healing platform that seeks to remind marginalized communities of their innate power through energetic modalities and inner exploration

Mr. Mahone has more than 14 years of experience in construction and project management, roadway design, intersection design, traffic studies, drainage, Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), site design and development, and retaining wall and bridge construction. He has served as Project Engineer on a wide variety of transportation projects such as new highway construction, corridor studies, highway/interstate rehabilitation, and lane additions to urban/rural highways, urban street construction, and streetscape projects as well as land development projects. Mr. Mahone’s comprehensive design and construction management experience makes him a valuable team member in managing heavy construction projects.

Brother Art Muhammad aka “The Cut Professor”. Licensed Barber, Licensed Cosmetologist & Licensed Barber Instructor Extraordinaire. President of The Original Man’s Barber & Style Corporation Est. 1997; Founder of the Barbers 4 Peace Foundation an NFP Est. 2017. Now serving as Manager of The Legendary Coleman Brothers Barber Shop which will be celebrating its 65th year this September. Along with that I frequently travel throughout the country servicing High Profile, Executive & Entertainment clients.

Joe(y) is a young Black man born and raised on the southwest side of Chicago and sees himself as a source of violence interruption for his community. Joe(y) is currently the Training Coordinator at Ujimaa Medics and has been a supportive force for many other organizations that are centered around disrupting oppressive social infrastructure and norms. In his freetime he is an artist that uses many mediums to express his human experience.

I am from Mississippi. I joined the Army at the age of 17. I currently I have been in the Army 15 years.

Imanne Mondane is a multi-hyphenate filmmaker and creative in the entertainment industry. As a writer, director, producer and actress, she has visions of taking her story telling to the highest level and creating content that inspires, liberates, and transcends the film and television industry.

My name is Ms. Morrow, I've been in the educational field for about 8 years as an academic tutor, teacher, and paraprofessional. Now I teach in the realm of holistic health and wellness. I educate and guide youth and others on how to become more balanced with their emotions, more grounded, more intuned with their bodies, and more connected with their spirit. I do this through the practices of yoga, meditation, breath work and the teachings of holistic knowledge.

30 year veteran of the Hotel industry in both Food and Beverage as well as Revenue Management. The last 15 years in the industry was focused on Revenues.

Sharon is a Chicago based Art Director, Production Designer, Architect and Artist.

In 2015, after an almost twenty-year stint practicing architecture Sharon expanded her career to design for film and television. During her architecture career, Sharon worked on a variety of projects from single family residential to multi-million-dollar mixed use projects mainly within the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Sharon has been recognized nationally for both her design work and her contributions to the architecture and design profession over the years.

To date, she has worked in a variety of roles within Art Departments on television shows and feature films. Like many architecture nerds, she started as a set designer Sharon now works mainly as an Art Director both in Chicago and nationwide.

I spent the first half of my career in the Army for over 20 years. Upon retiring from the Army in 2007, I spent the next fifteen years growing a business that primarily serves the Department of Defense. Our company specializes in information technology, network operations, training, and other mission support services.

Robiar Smith, the owner or R.B. Pest Solutions. The fastest growing pest control company owned by a woman in the Midwest! Pest control has allowed her to return home to her grassroots and it’s her calling. She feels like her career and now having her own business has brought her full circle and she is fulfilling her destiny! She received her education and joined corporate America with one purpose in mind, but in reality, she was being prepared to run her own multi-billion dollar company.

In a male-dominated field, she is trailblazing her way to the top, servicing her community and educating them along the way. She didn't choose Pest Control. Pest Control choose her! Anyone who talks to her can see the passion she has for this industry and the love she has for her family.
The letter "B" in the name R.B. Pest Solutions is in honor of her father, Michael Benton. Since her parents, Michael and Dolores, didn't have any sons, it is important for Robiar to carry on her father's legacy with this company. His work ethic and business strategies will not go in vain. Generations to come will know about the man who taught her so much! He's the best teacher a woman could ask for. Dolores, Robiar's mother, introduced her father to extermination. In return, he showed his daughter, a little black girl from the south side of Chicago, the true meaning of entrepreneurship. She learned to create her own lane and live her dreams while fulfilling her other responsibilities.

R.B. Pest Solutions is a locally owned business that services commercial and residential properties helping them get rid of bedbugs, termites, rodents, and general pests. You got Pests! We'll take care of the rest.

I am a graduate from Fisk University in Nashville, TN. and spent some of my time in social services. I have always had a passion for medicine and health services. I had an opportunity to explore this option by obtaining my license as an Emergency Medical Technician. There my passion for emergency services specifically grew. This path lead me to Ujimaa Medics where I am able to be apart of a collective that spreads emergency first response and community care, where my passion definitively.