If you know one thing about Corner to Corner, know that our team believes in the work we are doing so much, that the vast majority of our staff are Academy graduates themselves!

Including Tara Holt, our Operations Director and the owner and founder of Elevate Now, a consulting firm that helps people elevate professionally and personally by offering courses such as public speaking, time management, stress Management and creating customized microlearning videos. 

A Fall 2019 graduate, Tara enrolled looking for something to fulfill a desire that she had longed after for several years: the ability to own something of her own. 

“I knew I had a specific skill set, but I didn’t know how to translate that skill set over into making it a business and monetizing it.” 

The Academy helped her do just that, guiding her through identifying a target customer and understanding your business’ bottom line. 

And because our relationship with graduates doesn’t end after the 10-weeks of The Academy, we were able to connect Tara to an incredible opportunity: Goldman Sachs’ Black in Business program.  

“At Goldman Sachs, I was surrounded by a room of amazing Black women who all had the same desire as me, to own their business.” 

With the foundational learning of The Academy, and the connection to Goldman Sachs to further her education, Tara worked on building systems that set a path for her business to grow and scale.  

“It helped me solidify that feeling, that ‘yeah I can actually do this!‘ Being a Black woman entrepreneur can feel lonely. But Corner to Corner helps connect us all. Because we are not by ourselves, and the only way that we’ll realize that is if we build community, build a support system to get that guidance from each other, and just share our experiences ” 

Tara has seen many successes, both as an entrepreneur and as our Operations Director. “Understanding that I have something that people need, that’s the mentality that I use when I walk into a room.” 

Watch Tara’s full interview here.