Global Strategists Association

In honor of Black History Month we are hosting A Way Forward For Chicago as part of our global leadership series. Our Founder will sit down with Pastor of to discuss leading with faith & humanity. Register www.chicago.org

If you missed our Black and Global event celebrating 10 years, check out the highlights from our recap video below.

GSA 10 YEAR CELEBRATION: BLACK AND GLOBAL RECAP On Friday, October 13, 2023 Global Strategists Association(GSA) celebrated 10 years of global service to the city of Chicago by hosting Black and Global at B...

More amazing photos from our guests at Black and Global 2023. A special thank you to the Cónsul General of Colombia in Chicago, Diego Angulo for joining us.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Black and Global celebrating 10 years of impact in the city of Chicago. Check out some of the photos and standby for our debut recap video dropping in minutes.

It’s GSA Day!! Wahoo. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you later today. All roads lead to Black & Global. 🎈Happy 10th Anniversary to us. 🎉

We are so elated to announce La'Keisha of Girls Like Me Project, Inc., Inc. as one of our 2023 Global Impact Honorees.

Lakeisha Gray-Sewell is a Founder | Executive Director
​Girls Advocate. Author. Transformational Speaker. Digital Storyteller. Writer.

​La'Keisha is a new media relations and strategic communications consultant by trade, and a girls advocate by life assignment. An internationally recognized urban girls advocate, a media literacy expert, and speaker, La'Keisha founded Girls Like Me Project Inc. to train girls in media literacy and empower them to navigate beyond negative media stereotypes to become global legacy builders. Under her leadership, GLMPI has served more than 700 girls through its transformative programs and events.

A native of Chicago, La'Keisha has been honored for her work as a girls' advocate and social entrepreneur. In 2020 she was inducted into the Goldin Institute's Chicago Peace Fellows. She's been featured in syndicated media such as The Steve Harvey TV Show, Ebony Magazine, Moms Rising Radio, MyBrownBaby.com, and a WAOK/CBS to name a few. Named a 2016 Salvation Army Community Hero, Chicago Defender's 40 Under 40 to Watch as well as Trumpet Magazine's Movers and Shakers Under 40, La'Keisha has established herself as a thought leader and girls activist in Chicago and beyond.

During the summer of 2018, La'Keisha released her highly acclaimed book "Move Beyond the Block", a memoir, empowerment, and homage celebration to women's history, adding author to her long list of achievements. As a former producer and host of Voices of Advocacy Radio, La'Keisha currently hosts Move Beyond The Block TV and podcast showcasing leading activists, community servants, and entrepreneurs.

In 2019, she was honored at the She Rocks It Award Ceremony and for her stellar community service by Lambda Kappa Mu Soroity, Inc.

La'Keisha earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Mass Communications/Radio and Television from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. La'Keisha advocates for girls and is unapologetic about steering the conversation and elevating the bar on raising healthy and liberated black girls. To help us celebrate La'Keisha click here for tickets https://givebutter.com/BlackandGlobal

We are excited to announce Dometi Pongo as one of our 2023 Global Impact Honorees. Dometi Pongo {pronounced dō-meh-TEE} is a media veteran and innovative storyteller whose work lives at the intersection of pop culture and social justice. Music enthusiasts and fans across various genres laud his endearing yet incisive interview style, evident in his viral red carpet interactions with top-charting artists and in-depth conversations on MTV’s "The Method" featuring musicians like Phoebe Bridgers, 5SOS, Julia Michaels, Hitboy, and Charlie Puth.

Dometi spearheaded MTV's acclaimed Docuseries, "True Life Crime," and and recently hosted “The Exhibit,” a series in which seven artists vie for $100,000 and a coveted installation at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

The influence of Dometi’s efforts extends as widely as his passions. In addition to hosting - and serving looks - at Paramount’s flagship occasions (e.g. Video Music Awards, Grammys, Top Gun World Premiere, and MTV Movie & TV Awards), the Chicago-born journalist led numerous Smithsonian Channel programs delving into subjects ranging from hip-hop’s cultural footprint to an American history retrospective alongside Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lonnie Bunch III.

He has hosted, produced and contributed to multiple Paramount franchises including MTV News’ former flagship program, “Need to Know,” which provided award-winning analysis of trending news stories. For BET’s “America In Black,” Dometi walked viewers through the global rise of Afrobeats music and its impact in galvanizing the African diaspora. And for VH1’s “Lineage to Legacy,” Dometi guided the cast of Love and HipHop through an exploration of their ancestral lineage culminating in tattoos by the Black Ink Crew in a one-of-a-kind, two-part special.

His cultural commentary has been heard on CNN’s Flash Docs, Entertainment Tonight/ ET Live, and Sirius XM’s Karen Hunter Show to name a few.

In addition to his work in digital journalism, he is a speaker, a multimedia consultant and member of the YR Media Board of Directors where he serves as the non-profit’s Co-Vice Chair and esteemed member of its Midwest Advisory Council.

Dometi lives by the personal mantra, “Bring everything you are to everything you do.” True to form, the first-generation Ghanaian-American hosts annual group tours of Ghana affording American travelers from the African diaspora an opportunity to explore their ancestral lineage in a program led by Pongo Strategy Group and Sankofa Ventures. To join us as we celebrate Dometi click here for tickets.
http://bit.ly/45YQDq0

You still have time to grab your tickets for our 10th anniversary event on Friday.

Black & Global: Celebrating the Global Impact of Black Chicago Cocktail Reception: Celebrating 10 Years of Service

We are so excited to announce our 2023 Global Impact Honorees. Join us on Friday, October 13, 2023 to celebrate the contributions they’ve made throughout their careers. Click here for tickets http://bit.ly/45YQDq0.

As we prepare to celebrate our 10 year anniversary we are looking back at some of our favorite people who we’ve worked with over the years. The amazing Nichole Marshall joined us in 2017 for a powerful presentation at our Women’s Luncheon on global leadership.

We are reflecting on the last ten years and what an awesome journey it’s been to build out a more equitable global affairs community in Chicago with you. Check out some photos of our faves and yours from the past ten years.

After witnessing the struggle, and inconvenience he and many of his friends had to go through to get “African” foods, Boyede embarked on a journey to remedy this problem. This journey led to the creation of OjaExpress, which has put him in the path of become a global leader in Chicago. Boyede and the OjaExpress team seek to enhance the lives of immigrants and cultural food lovers by making cultural foods easily accessible through the OjaExpress digital marketplace, with his co-founder Fola Dada.

Boyede Sobitan is the Co-founder and CEO of OjaExpress, a digital marketplace for culture-specific grocery stores. A Bronzeville resident raised on the Northside(Uptown), Boyede’s route to tech and entrepreneurship is very unlikely given his background. Boyede is a healthcare administrator. He graduated from the University of Illinois-Chicago’s College of Nursing with his BSN and School of Public Health with his Masters in Healthcare Administration (MHA). Boyede has a passion for mentoring, community development, and social responsibility. In addition to serving as the advisor and immediate past president o

Nigerian American Professionals Association (NAPA), Boyede serves as a board member for the University of Illinois-Chicago MHA Advisory Board. Boyede is a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. Boyede is a board-certified Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. Boyede is passionate about community development while seeking opportunities to leverage the collective genius of the African community, to create an environment in which future immigrants will not have to struggle, like those that preceded them.

Register for free to join in the conversation:

https://bit.ly/3Celliq

What an honor to have Consuela Hendricks, Co-Founder/ Co-President People Matter as one of our future global leaders panelist. As an urban ecologist, artist, and community organizer who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, Consuela Hendricks is a visionary for racial solidarity work in Chicago and beyond.
Consuela Hendricks is the Co-president and Director of Programs and Planning at People Matter. She is a 4th generation Chicago native with over a decade’s experience in improving race relations between Black/ Latinx /Asian communities. She has a background in technology, urban studies, and youth mentorship and has mentored over 1000 youth of color in Chicago. She has experience with government and policy at Senator Tammy Duckworth’s office, participatory planning and community engagement at the Obama Foundation, and anti-displacement work in Chicago’s gentrifying neighborhoods.

As a community leader in Chinatown who started advocating for the community since she was 16 years old, Consuela created the Black Heroes of Chinatown celebration in 2020. This annual event uplifts the Black community members essential to Chinatowns nationwide, and has celebrated 20 Black Heroes in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Oakland since its inception.
Consuela also created the Community Language Program at People Matter, one of the nation’s only dual immersion Cantonese and English classes taught through a social justice lens. The program seeks to preserve the Cantonese language as well as bridge the language barrier between Chinese immigrants and their American born children, as well as community members of color who live and work in the Chinatown area in Chicago.

Consuela is also the founder of the People Matter Institute, where she teaches workshops and classes on Unlearning Anti-Blackness, Tackling Violence against East and Southeast Asians, Black and Brown Solidarity, Allyship, and more. Previous clients include University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Pilsen Alliance, Arise Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago.

Make sure to registerto join in the conversation:

https://bit.ly/3Celliq

We are thrilled to have Mariam Huss, Founder of Axxum Consulting LLC on our panel October 13th for Black & Global: Rewriting the Global Footprint of Chicago.

Axxum Consulting is a management consulting firm offering Human Capital, Operations and Strategy services. She has 20 years of Human Capital experience helping clients from small-to-medium sized businesses to large multinational corporations. Prior to founding Axxum, she held positions at IBM, EY and KPMG. She holds an MBA from Université Laval (Canada) and is PMP (Project Management Institute) and Prosci® (Change Management) certified. Involved in the community, she sits on the Board of the French American Chamber of Commerce, Association of Change Management Professionals and was named an Emerging Leader in 2020 from the Chicago Council of Global Affairs.

Register for free to join in the conversation:

https://bit.ly/3Celliq

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Circa: 2017
Global Strategists Association in partnership with Leave No Veteran Behind, AON and Truman National Security Project hosted by Terrell Brown of ABC-7 News.

Thank you The Crusader Newspaper!

We hope you can join us to celebrate our 9 years of working change the face of global affairs and an in-depth conversation.

Register for free to join in the conversation:

https://bit.ly/3Celliq

Global Strategists Association celebrates 9 Years by shining light on Black Entrepreneurs who are fostering a global city Patrick S.K. Woodtor Receives 2022 Global Leader Award for His Global Footprint in Chicago

Reginaldo Montague have been doing exceptional work in the GSA community. On October the 13th, he will receive the 2022 Global Champion Award for his work with Global Strategists Association over a seven-year span.

Register for free:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/black-global-rewriting-the-global-footprint-of-chicago-tickets-427969557467