Ear Hustle

EarHustle411 Kudos: Powerhouse Women Of Color Doing It BIG And You Should Know About Them

Black Enterprise released a great list of women who are making real power moves across the globe. From entertainment to business to politics, these beautiful women are making great impact in their individual countries!

Check out the list below!

Image via KonnectAfrica

Afua Osei and Yasmin Belo-Osagie

Hailing from Nigeria, these ladies are the founders of She Leads Africa, which supports female entrepreneurs from Africa and the Diaspora. The organization offers information on startup funds, events, and pitch competitions, awarding creative women money to fund their business ideas.

Image via University of Illinois at Chicago

Ertharin Cousin

Representing Italy, Cousin serves as the 12th Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian organization. She leads over 13,400 staff members as they serve more than 90 million beneficiaries in 80 countries across the world!

Image via Ventures Africa

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

The president of Liberia was recently listed among the top 100 most powerful women in the world by Forbes. After the Ebola virus swept the nation in 2014, the country was able to get down to zero cases of the disease in May 2015 by Johnson-Sirleaf’s controversial decision to quarantine infected and poor neighborhoods. However, Liberia became the first nation to wipe the disease out in only one year.

Image via This is Africa

Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang

Opoku-Agyemang serves as the minister of education in Ghana, and is currently working towards removing the use of English as the country’s primary language for education by finding innovative ways of instruction that are effective and relatable to the students in her country. The Minister also promotes support of advanced studies in STEM, primary school reform, and workforce preparation.

Image via Jamaica Observer

Portia Simpson Miller

Miller servers as the prime minister and minister of defense, development, information and sports in Jamaica. She is also the first head of government in the history of the country to formally stand up for civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens during an election campaign. In addition to fighting economic problems, she is focused on building alliances with the U.S. for energy-related technologies, growing the island’s tourism industry, among other issues.

Image via SXSW

Emma Nyra

Nyra relocated to Nigeria in pursuit of music, making her first mainstream debut featuring in Iyanya’s smash hit, Ur Waist. With a wide fan base of over 200,000 on social media and beyond, the artist has had big radio hits including track “Elele,” and has toured all over the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Image via University of Bristol

Teocah Dove

Representing Trinidad, Dove has worked as a volunteer in youth development, women and gender advocacy, HIV/AIDS, human rights, poverty alleviation, and community development. With roles in leadership like her current role as Trinidad and Tobago’s representative in the United Nations Development Programme—Caribbean Youth Think Tank, Dove was recently named as one of 60 young leaders to be awarded The Queen’s Young Leaders Award.

Image via Wiphold

Louisa Mojela

Based in South Africa, Mojela is CEO of Women Investment Portfolio Holdings Limited (WIPHOLD), an investment and operating company owned by black women to advocate for the empowerment of black women. With a variety of services from financial services, mining and infrastructure development, the company is the first women’s group to be listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Image via Our Africa Blog

Amira Elmissiry

Elmissiry hails from Zimbabwe, working as special assistant to the president of the African Development Bank. In her role, she is responsible for matters which include operations, policy, and strategic issues. In addition, Elmissiry has worked with several international brands including Initiatives of Change International, the German Technical Cooperation, and the Southern African Development Community.

Image via For Harriet

Nicole Amarteifio, Millie Monyo, and the cast of An African City

Representing Nigeria and Ghana, Amarteifio and Monyo created An African City in 2014, which was dubbed by CNN as “Africa’s Sex & the City.” The YouTube series follows five ladies who return to Accra, Ghana looking for a change in career, love, and overall personal fulfillment. The cast includes breakout stars MaameYaa Boafo (Nana Yaa), Nana Mensah (Sade), Marie Humbert (Makena), Maame Adjei (Zainab), and Esosa E (Ngozi).

Image via Fortune

Elizabeth Nyamayaro

Hailing from the UK, Nyamayaro works as senior adviser to the executive director of UN Women. She also heads the HeForShe campaign, which seeks support specifically from men as advocates for gender equality for women. Since the campaign’s inception, more than 300,000 men have signed up, and it has been a major topic of conversation on social media with 1.2 billion interactions regarding the campaign.

Image via BusySinging.com

Zahara

Zahara, an artist from South Africa, has been a huge success in her area! Just last year, her album Country Girl reportedly went gold in 24 hours (her 2011 debut release, Loliwe, went platinum in 13 days)! She has won eight South African Music Awards (SAMAs), including Best Female Artist and Album of the Year.

Image via Howard University

Kelechi Anyadiegwu

Hailing from Nigeria, Anyadiegwu is the founder of Zuvaa, an online marketplace for African-inspired fashion and accessories. The platform has almost 80,000 followers on Instagram and has earned $500,000 in sales for 2015. It offers African designers the chance to increase revenue as well as expand their customer bases.

Image via Elle South Africa

Terry Pheto

Pheto, a South African actress and producer, is best known for her lead role as Miriam in the 2005 Oscar-winning feature film Tsotsi, and has appeared in a variety of film and TV projects including Catch a Fire, How to Steal 2 Million, and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. She also recently received support and U.S. distribution from award-winning director Ava Duvernay for a film she co-produced called Ayanda.

Source: Rickey Smiley

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