Pioneers such as Robert L. Johnson have served as role models to younger African Americans in business. Here’s a look at some notable African American leaders and some younger businesspeople, the industries in which they excel, a few business lessons from Johnson, and the challenges that Black Americans still face.
Finance
Thasunda Brown Duckett is CEO and president of TIAA (the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund), a retirement services company. Brown Duckett also serves on the boards of Nike, the National Medal of Honor Museum, Sesame Workshop, and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization, as per Forbes. Brown Duckett was named on Forbes’s “inaugural list of the most powerful, impactful and wealthiest Black Americans”, which noted she was the first female chief executive at TIAA. Forbes also named her as one of the World’s Most Powerful Women in 2024.
Entertainment
Robert L. Johnson is one of the biggest names in entertainment, having co-founded BET in 1979. BET was the first cable television network aimed at Black Americans. It was also the first Black TV company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). In a 2024 interview with Business Insider, Johnson said he wasn’t surprised that there were few Black-owned companies on the NYSE, but it was “disappointing”. He described it as “simply a way to raise capital to grow your business”.
Incidentally, Johnson doesn’t necessarily consider BET his biggest success. He said, “Because of BET, I’ve now created a company called Portability Services Network. Its sole purpose is to help Black American workers, particularly low-wage workers, keep their money in the 401(k) management system.”
Investment
Adebayo Ogunlesi is the chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). Last October, the company was sold to BlackRock for $12.5 billion. Ogunlesi retained his roles and has an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion. He has been described by the Financial Times as “one of Wall Street’s most powerful dealmakers”. Ogunlesi has multiple degrees, including an MBA from Harvard Business School, and worked in investment banking for over 20 years before cofounding GIP. During his investment career, he also lectured at Harvard and Yale Law Schools, as well as the Yale School of Management, teaching courses on transnational investment projects.
In early 2025, Ogunlesi was appointed to OpenAI’s board of directors. The company said his counsel would be “invaluable” for the progress of AI infrastructure and innovation. OpenAI, co-founded by Elon Musk in 2015, is one of the leaders in artificial intelligence.
Ogunlesi’s father, Theophilus Oladipo Ogunlesi, was recognized as the first Nigerian professor of medicine in the country.
Casinos
Don Barden was the first African American to own a casino in Las Vegas. He also owned casinos in Colorado and Mississippi, having taken over three Fitzgeralds casinos in 2002. Sadly, Fitzgerald passed in 2011. In a 2007 profile, The New York Times described Barden as “the country’s only African-American owner of a national gambling company.” Online review sites like casino.org/us/ and online casinos reviewed by such sites have since become more popular than traditional, physical casinos, offering greater flexibility and a wider range of games. This has led to many becoming millionaires or even billionaires through the online gambling sector.
CEOs on the rise
Derrick McCray is the CEO of his family business, McCray’s Backyard BBQ and Seafood. He told CNBC that the Florida business’s roots go back to 1934. His Uncle Jay ran “pretty much the only black restaurant business in his area during that time”. McCray has continued the restaurant’s traditions of only cooking on an open pit wood. He aims to take the restaurant nationwide.
Ernest Dukes is CEO at The Nottingham Agency and was named in Black Enterprise’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2023. The company develops marketing campaigns with cultural awareness.
Jonathan Rabb is the founder and CEO of Watch The Yard, which connects Black college students. He also co-founded Clutch, a digital security company.
- business lessons from Robert L. Johnson
- Johnson told Business Insider the best business advice he ever received was from John Malone, who said, “Get your revenues up, and keep your costs down.” Malone invested $500,000 when Johnson started BET. The latter had never run a business before, and never forgot that simple advice.
- He said there was no such thing as the “worst advice” for businesspeople – “It’s about what you do with the advice that people give you. If the person believes in you and you believe in yourself, you should be able to take that advice and use it to move ahead.”
- Success can’t be measured in dollars, according to Johnson. He said, “Most wealthy people I know don’t walk around waving in the air, ‘Oh, look how rich I am,’ because they know that’s not why you go on this journey.”
Challenges
There has been progress, but African American businesspeople still face considerable challenges. Historical discrimination has led to fewer opportunities for Black professionals to be appointed to executive roles. Once in leadership, African Americans often face heightened scrutiny and pressure to deliver. A 2022 study by the Brookings Institution noted, “Black people comprise approximately 14% of the U.S. population, but only 2.3% of owners of employer firms.” The authors, who included a senior research associate and senior fellow, noted that structural change at the “federal, state, and local level” is needed for the economy to work for everyone.
