Colette Phillips and GetKonnected!: Creating Inclusive Ecosystems

Colette Phillips’ marketing firm had just won the City of Boston’s 2nd largest contract in history to a Black-owned company. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Get Konnected!, the networking organization for people of color that she founded 15 years earlier and led to prominence, had evolved into a portfolio of 5 ventures, including executive recruiting and a VC fund, to remove systemic barriers to equity and inclusion in business and wealth creation in a long-racially-troubled region where she had also experienced discriminatory barriers. A strong commitment to partnerships, some controversial, had extended her reach, and Boston was changing, including its first elected female mayor of color. How could Phillips assess her impact as a leader, given the magnitude of the problems? What was the role of networking in increasing the numbers of successful minority and female small businesses? Was she contributing to changing the narrative and building new institutions? In addition to the 4 N’s of numbers, narratives, networks, and new institutions, how else could she capitalize on the region’s momentum, and determine what to do next with her platform to ensure a more equitable and inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem?