Hi, I’m Ariane Hunter.
My mission is to create more equity, opportunity, and supportive pathways for Black women in business to thrive.
My work draws on decades of experience in the corporate space, as a business owner, career strategist and consultant. I’ve worked with leading global organizations and business leaders including Women in Stem Leadership at Stony Brook University, Women’s Catalyst group at Hewlett Packard, Oracle, General Assembly, and many more. I’ve spoken on stages for Ladies Get Paid, Jopwell, WRISE, and NYU Stern Women in Business. I’ve been a featured guest on numerous empowerment podcasts and a published writer in Time.com, Her Agenda, The Daily Worth, and more.
What I’m most proud of to date, is my forthcoming book, Dreaming on Purpose: A Manifesto for Black Women on Taking the Leap, Blazing a Trail & Being Your Own Boss.
What keeps me going? In a word: You.
To date, this work has served several hundred women to launch and grow businesses and become stewards of their own career path. My clients and mentees have gone on to build award-winning non profits that have changed the course of education in low income communities. Some have become leading voices in the medical field to disrupt inequalities and create greater access to healthcare in communities of color. Some have launched travel companies to create opportunities for Black families to travel to Africa and reconnect with their roots. But most of all, this work centers our voices; the voices of Black women everywhere who have dared to reject the status quo and build her own path to freedom. Their work is quite literally changing the world.
This is just a portion of what we can do when presented with the right opportunities and resources.
How do I know this? When I started my journey back in 2010, I knew zero people who were doing what I was let alone business women who I could relate to. Back then I had to figure it out on my own and mostly how I did that was from following prescriptive career advice from self-help and career leadership books written by people who did not look like me.
I followed advice from white women who were considered top voices in the game; all successful entrepreneurs I wanted to emulate. They were my ‘unofficial’ mentors and while I did learn A LOT from their work, I did not always feel that their work was inclusive. They did not know the first thing about being a Black woman entrepreneur because it was not their experience.
Until I made the decision to proactively seek out and work with an inspiring Black woman Mentor who had achieved the things I wanted in my career that things began to really change for me. To have someone who believed in me, cared for and invested in my success and who could relate to my challenges as a Black woman professional and teach me the way through.
There is no doubt in my mind that you can go further, faster in your career or business with the right mentorship in place to help guide you. I’ve dedicated my work to building a space for us to experience success together and thrive as a powerful, collective sisterhood.
