Moving the Needle: CEOs Discuss Black Men Raising the Bar, Pushing Forward at Black Men Xcel Summit

BLACK ENTERPRISE Senior Vice President Alfred Edmond Jr., sat down with a diverse group of extraordinary Black men at the 2022 Black Men Xcel Summit for a powerful conversation on how Black men have raised the bar for themselves.

The chat, sponsored by Prudential, included Prudential Financial Planner Delvyn Joyce; founder of the Marcus Graham Project Lincoln Stephens, and Values Partnerships Managing Director Nicholas Wiggins.

The men started the conversation discussing the lessons and wins for Black men coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the rise in focusing on mental health. Stephens talked about how important it is for Black men to talk about things they used to keep to themselves.

“We’re winning because there is a certain amount of courage, particularly if that’s not the orientation of your mind to be open and expressive and vulnerable,” Stephens said. “So I think we’re winning in that.”

Wiggins agreed with Stephens, adding the pandemic helped break down the stigma of therapy.

“I started therapy post-pandemic, but I’m happy to be in therapy, I didn’t realize how much of a need that was for that and that’s because as Black men,” Wiggings told the panel. “Whether directly or indirectly, we have dealt with trauma most of our lives and it didn’t take the incidents in June 2020 to remind us of the trauma that we’ve faced day in and day out, but it gave us a little more drive to focus on our well-being and our mental health and that’s an important step that’s allowing us to win.”

The men also discussed how in addition to mental health Black men are taking their financial outlook and money more seriously, opening savings accounts, joining 401K plans, and investing.

“More than ever people are taking their financial wellness so much more seriously than previously and part of it is the pain of 2008 and 2009,” Joyce said. “Prior to the pandemic, many people could not imagine a scenario where they could be out of work for six months or a year because they forgot that pain, and one of the big wins that I’ve seen is people taking their finances so much more seriously.”

The men also touched on other topics, including what Black men can do moving forward and how Black men should help each other in business and personally instead of talking about it.

“I think a lot of times we get into rooms and part of the solution is, ‘Yeah we have to partner you know we have to do a deal together,’ but then we don’t,” Stephens said.

“Ego gets in the way or something else but we need to be thinking collective impact strategy and be really intentional about what that looks like,” he added. For example, that could businesses about to do a deal finding “a backbone organization that can help with structure and work together to maximize what you both can get out of a thing.”