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"For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change."

Audre Lorde

The Essence they didn't report

If we're being real, the internet had a field day with Essence this year. The lines. The logistics. The "Essence is over" thinkpieces writing themselves before the weekend even ended. Some of that was fair.

But I was there. And that is not the festival I was in.

The festival I was in put me on the We Love Us stage to talk to a room full of Black women about how to build wealth they actually keep. It had me giving live feedback to people brave enough to volunteer and pitch cold, helping them sharpen it on the spot. Buying earrings from a Black woman designer. Hugging people I've loved for years in a crowd of a hundred thousand of us.

We'll write ten articles about what a festival got wrong and not one about the Black woman who closed a deal in the lobby. So I'm going to keep telling the other story.

Read the full thing on the blog

⭐ Bring me to your stage

That Essence talk? That's what I do, and I do the honest version!

If your audience needs a real conversation about money, ownership, and building something that lasts, book me. I speak to founders, investors, companies, and communities.

What I speak on:

Investing beyond stocks and savings: how Black women build generational wealth

Getting raise-ready: what founders get wrong about fundraising

Building Black economic power, on purpose

Keynote, fireside, panel, or workshop. Now booking dates for the rest of 2026. See my topics and past stages in my speaker kit, then let's find your date.

Book me to speak.

See topics & past stages in my speaker kit →

Coming soon
BREAK THE BARREL

I'm building a founder community. Break the Barrel is the room where founders get honest about the hard parts and actually move each other forward. Doors aren't open yet, so get on the list and you'll be first through them.

Join the waitlist

Where I'll be

Black Ahh Trivia🎉

Thu Aug 20, 6 to 10 PM, Atlantucky. The “School Daze” edition. RSVP

Fictive on Martha's Vineyard | August. An LP fundraising brunch on Aug 12, plus our free virtual So You Want to Be an LP? If you're just getting started.

The PIT Atlanta | all summer. Morning Money Mix, a Co-Building Day, and PIT Power Hour (virtual office hours, open to every entrepreneur).

The Entry Point | Savannah, Sept 23 to 27. An invitation-only experience about building Black ownership in the city. Request an invitation.

And catch me in these rooms: National Bar Association 101st Annual Convention and a few other big events this fall. If you'll be there, come find me.

Featured: a Black woman winning

Put your money on her: Gwen Beloti Collection. I bought earrings from Gwen Beloti at Essence and I have not taken them off since. Gwen is a Brooklyn-born designer who built a gold jewelry house on one radical idea: that luxury should be reachable. This isn't a charity feature. It's a Black woman winning. Go treat yourself: gwenbeloti.com | @gwenbeloti.

a 3-minute ask
FOR FOUNDERS

If you're a Black founder, I want three minutes of your time. I'm building something with a Black-owned bank, and before I say more, I want real data on how founders actually experience banking. What works, what's broken, where you've been underserved. The Black Founders Banking Survey takes about three minutes and directly shapes what we build.

Take the survey

(And this fall: DSCN, my founder diagnostic, tells you exactly how fundable you are and what to fix. More soon.)

BUILD YOUR TEAM

Quick one. How much of your week goes to $15-an-hour work on your $300-an-hour time? The inbox, the invoicing, the follow-ups you keep meaning to send. That's not hustle. It's a ceiling you built yourself.

When founders ask how I run all of this, I send them to the same place: krh.reachsupport.com.

Vetted remote professionals, fully managed, onboarded in about a week.

I'm a strategic advisor and referral partner for REACH Support.

BUILD YOUR TEAM

When founders ask how I run all of this, I send them to the same place: krh.reachsupport.com.

Vetted remote professionals, fully managed, onboarded in about a week.

I'm a strategic advisor and referral partner for REACH Support.

Get in my world

Do me a favor. Tell me who you are so I can send you the right things, not everything:

I'm a founder · I'm an investor · I'm a supporter · I book speakers

Coming soon: "What Would Khadijah Say?" My founder-advice bot, trained on how I actually think about building. Want in first?

Join the waitlist

Follow me: LinkedIn · Instagram · @dijadontneedya · Threads · X · TikTok

everything at bio.sites/dijadontneedya

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