Black Business Summit + Market

Teto Wilson

Teto Wilson is a local Minneapolis Husband, Father and Community Advocate and Entrepreneur.
He founded and manages Wilson's Image Barbers & Stylists.Founder and Board Chair of Wilson's Image College Scholarship, a North Minneapolis education initiative created in 2018 with the purpose of giving Black Scholars funding for college expenses.Founder of Live Your Healthy Life, a block party/event with the goal of providing health, housing and banking resources to North Minneapolis residents.Founder and Co-Owner of Swank Eatery/Bar a North Minneapolis economic growth engine cloaked as a bar and restaurant that provides housing, employment and wealth building opportunities for African American residents.Founder of Wilson's Image Holding LLC, a real estate holding company that owns and manages his commercial and residential properties.Teto leads teams of people that find and share resources to the most underserved residents of North Minneapolis and beyond. His mission in life and community work is to be far more transformational than transactional, to ensure adequate and necessary resources and services are gained and utilized by the people that need them the most!

Tawanna Black

Tawanna A. Black is an award-winning architect of racially inclusive and equitable talent, procurement, philanthropy, and marketing strategies that yield results for businesses, their consumers, and the communities they work in. For more than 20 years, she has gained the trust of executives by mobilizing stakeholders to transform brands that diverse workers, consumers, and business owners can trust.As Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Economic Inclusion (the Center), Ms. Black is on a mission to fuel racially inclusive and equitable regional economic growth in cities across the country. She has unlocked the formula for responsible corporate action to build shared economic growth while increasing consumer, shareholder, and investor trust and loyalty. Ms. Black’s team develops and optimizes data-informed talent, supply-chain, and marketing solutions to drive increased consumer and b2b sales growth and performance in diverse markets.The Center’s proprietary, industry leading employer assessment, index and toolkit help corporations identify the interdependent impact of human resources, supply chain, marketing and investment decisions on employee productivity, business growth, and community impact. Their analyses, change management consultation and coaching results in ground-breaking solutions to move organizations from stagnant diversity programs to anti-racist business strategies that drive measurable financial return and economic competitiveness for the cities and regions where they operate.Since founding the Center in 2017, Ms. Black has become a nationally recognized thought leader, elevating the economic imperative for corporate action to close racial wealth gaps and build shared prosperity. Businesses across the country turned to Ms. Black for guidance and strategies to respond to the economic impacts of COVID-19, and the uprisings following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. She offered unwavering guidance to disrupt systemic racism, and today executives trust her counsel for developing sustainable strategies that eradicate longstanding racial wealth gaps.Each year, Ms. Black and her team offer services to more than fifty businesses and educate over 10,000 leaders to take anti-racist actions at work and within their spheres of influence to build more inclusive economies, using rigorous, data-informed, trusted methods. She has developed partnerships to invest in Black owned businesses and scale entrepreneurship in growth sectors to meet the corporate opportunity.

Latasha Powell

Latasha Powell is a member of the leadership team at Appetite For Change, where she helps guide the organization's strategic planning and decision-making in support of its mission to create health, wealth, and powerful social change in North Minneapolis through food.As Appetite For Change has grown over the past decade, Latasha has played an important role in strengthening the organization's infrastructure to support continued growth and long-term community impact. Through innovative programming, Appetite For Change brings people together around food to strengthen the local economy, nourish families, and foster meaningful social connections. The organization believes food has the power to inspire lasting change, promote healing, and build stronger, more connected communities.With several years of nonprofit leadership experience, Latasha brings expertise in organizational management, program development and implementation, stakeholder engagement, event planning, project management, fundraising, and team leadership. Her passion for community-centered leadership and sustainable impact continues to drive initiatives that empower individuals and strengthen neighborhoods.

Lachelle Cunningham

Chef Lachelle has been a dynamic force on the Twin Cities’ food scene and is known for cooking globally inspired comfort food that thwarts unhealthy stereotypes and fuses in global flavors.She began her culinary career by launching Chelles’ Kitchen in 2012 and soon became known for her work as the founding Executive Chef of Breaking Bread Cafe (2015) in North Minneapolis, where she received many accolades for her food creativity and social justice work.In 2018, Chef Lachelle began building Healthy Roots Institute, with a mission focused on healing and social justice through food education, culinary arts and entrepreneurship. HRI’s coursework offerings have been utilized by several corporations and community groups.Along the way, Cunningham has formed multiple partnerships with organizations such as Appetite for Change, The Good Acre, Youthprise, and NDC that continue to be beneficial to the growth of HRI.