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Felecia Hatcher to lead Pharrell Williams’ Black Ambition nonprofit

Nancy Dahlberg
Nancy Dahlberg
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Since 2014, Felecia Hatcher has co-founded Code Fever for youth coding and entrepreneurship education, BlackTech Week for national conferences and events, A Space Called Tribe co-working and accelerator space, and most recently the Center For Black Entrepreneurship that encompasses key aspects of all three of those organizations and more to accelerate Black entrepreneurship. This week she announced on social media she will be the founding CEO of Black Ambition, a new initiative launched by Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Pharrell Williams.
Black Ambition, which she said will be based in Miami, will fund and support projects and companies started by Black and Latinx founders through a series of national prize competitions. Black Ambition is now accepting applications for The Black Ambition HBCU Prize and The Black Ambition Prize.
“Excited to lead this! Excited to be in a position to directly fund founders,” Hatcher shared on Facebook. More details about her new role will be forthcoming, she said.
With the new appointment, Hatcher is stepping down as executive director of the Center for Black Entrepreneurship. “After 7 years working to build Miami’s tech and startup community … it’s hard to leave your baby, so this is bittersweet,” she shared on Facebook. “We built Florida’s first Black tech movement.”
The Center’s work will continue to be led by Derick Pearson, her partner in business and in life, and Starex Smith, she continued. “Our goal is to become THE CENTER OF BLACK INNOVATION! And all that work will continue!”
Last November, the Center  received a $2.1 million grant from the Knight Foundation, NBCUniversal and the Surdna Foundation to become a national hub for research and training for  Black entrepreneurship.
Hatcher said the Center has so far connected Black founders with over $10 million in funding and capital opportunities.
Follow @ndahlberg on Twitter and email her at [email protected]

Nancy Dahlberg
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