Esosa Ighodaro-Johnson and Regina Gynn are changing the landscape in Tech for Black Women!

Who are Esosa Ighodaro-Johnson and Regina Gynn?

Esosa Ighodaro-Johnson and Regina Gwynn are the Co-Creators of  Black Women Talk Tech, the largest membership organization of black women tech entrepreneurs and the only conference designed for that community. This collective has a unique understanding of the challenges faced in the technology ecosystem, but also of the advantages they can bring.

Esosa Ighodaro is a former bank executive at Citigroup and a 2x serial entrepreneur and has over 12 years of Marketing and operation experience. Her achievements at her past companies led to several articles and past awards, including being named 100 Most Powerful Women by Entrepreneur Magazine in 2019 and one of the 50 Inspirational Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2017, and Top 10 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch by Paste Magazine. This ultimately lands her features in ELLE, Forbes, NBC, The Huffington Post, USA Today, and many more.

Regina Gwynn launched her first tech startup in 2014 with TresseNoire, a beauty tech startup that empowers women of color to celebrate their textured hair with a personalized beauty routine that works. Regina started her career in the Product Development Executive Training program at Federated Department Stores (now Macy’s Inc.), and successfully launched several exclusive brands during her tenure. After graduating from the Kellogg School of Management with her MBA, Regina was a management consultant with the Monitor Group (now Monitor/Deloitte Consulting) and worked with clients within the beauty, media and healthcare industries. She was then tapped to lead marketing at The Apparel Group, where she built the department from scratch and launched the company’s first ecommerce site for its signature brand, Foxcroft Collection. Corporate retail experience includes Macy’s Inc., The Apparel Group & Monitor Group-Deloitte. MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.  Regina has been named to the 100 Most Powerful Women by Entrepreneur Magazine and Top Ten Women in Tech by Essence Magazine.

How did you both come up with Black Women Talk Tech?

We actually kept seeing each other at the same events in the city. One thing we noticed was that many of the times we were the only black people in the room. We decided one day to do a girls’ retreat to get to know each other more and discuss our businesses. It was important to us for the weekend to be a mix about both business and self care. This was in 2015 at a small Airbnb in Connecticut, and that’s truly how our story began.We found that our fellowship, and sharing our businesses with each other, was really empowering. It was so meaningful. So, we said, “we have to try and do this again.” Our mission is to inspire and support black women to build the next billion-dollar tech company. We decided to put it out there to see if we could find more black women tech founders and create a conference just for them. Our mission is to inspire and support black women to build the next billion-dollar tech company. At the time, I don’t think we realized that we just created the first-ever conference for black women technology founders.

Tell us about Black Women Talk Tech? 

Black Women Talk Tech (BWTT) is a worldwide collective of black women tech founders who uniquely understand Black women startup owners’ challenges in the industry. Still, most importantly, they know the contribution of these innovators. The organization seeks to identify, support, and encourage Black women to build the next billion-dollar business.  We focus on 4 main pillars: education, promotion, research and funding. 

What are some takeaways you have learned now entering into your 6th year? 

 Going into our 6th year, we have come a long way.  We have learned that there is strength in numbers as black women in tech is growing exponentially by the day.  When someone opens the door for you, make sure you look back and open and keep it held for the next “sister in arms” because we are each other’s keepers. We are looking forward to the future of Black Women Talk Tech and where we will be in another six years. 

What’s next for BWTT?

Black Women Talk Tech recently announced the acquisition of Black Female Founders. We’ve known Erin Horne McKinney for years – she’s always been a big supporter of Black Women Talk Tech. We worked with Black Female Founders for a few years and explored an acquisition because it made sense to merge our communities. We want to bring more resources and connections to more Black women founders.Our communities overlapped so the acquisition made sense to bring more resources and connections to more Black women founders. We’ve known Erin Horne McKinney for years and before this acquisition, she’s always been a big supporter of Black Women Talk Tech.

We will be using some of Black Female Founders’ content for our Black Students Talk Tech initiative and throughout new programming rolling out this year.

We are coming off the heels of our Face Of A Founder Summit which focused on finance for future entrepreneurs.  It was a resounding success.  We are now gearing up for Roadmap To Billions which will take place on June 16th & 17th.  This will be a hybrid event out of Brooklyn, New York.  We have reached international audience members as far as Australia in the past!  Each year gets bigger and better, so people will have to get their tickets early because what we have planned for 2022 is going to blow your mind!

What advice would you give black women looking to get into tech?

Lean into your audience.  Use social media as a tool to cultivate your business.  It can also be a great platform for so many reasons. One in particular is funding. Challenges we face as Black women include access to funding, funding through business avenues is a slow burn. We also face higher interest rates. In addition there is a need for talent to scale the amazing opportunities.  For Black women and tech startups when it comes to funding it’s a dance because women get less funding than men and that margin is even smaller for Black women.