Our Mission
BECA is a nonprofit 501c3, focused on providing an intimate, trusted, safe space for Black marketing C-Suite executives to share, learn, elevate, and pay it forward in order to create opportunity, access, and equality for the current and next generation of Black marketing leaders.
What Drives Us
We are profoundly aware of the inequality and seeming indifference that excludes Black employees from the C-Suite and leads to a lack of corporate board diversity. As members and allies, we feel an obligation to create a navigable path for Black marketers. By building a bigger, better pipeline, BECA will prepare more Black talent to advance in their careers and increase their value and contributions.
Join an alliance of extraordinary leaders disrupting business as usual.
Our Core Pillars
We aim to maintain a trusted, safe space where Black leaders can come together to share experiences. A space where sharing struggles, challenges, insights, failures, and triumphs is encouraged. By cultivating a network of accomplished business professionals, we will drive needed change and eliminate “it’s lonely at the top” from being a reality for members.
Many employees are given or inevitably learn the playbook for career success. However, many talented Black professionals aren’t given the playbook with tips on how to sidestep landmines that derail success. Studies have shown that retention and success rates among Black employees lags significantly behind their white peers. So together, BECA members will serve as beacons to help illuminate the path to greater success.
BECA’s marketing leaders have been charged with growing the top and bottom lines of their organizations, and have done so expertly. By amplifying this excellence, more young students and marketing professionals will be able to see themselves in these roles and choose to pursue similar paths. We also want to make sure that those already at the top get the visibility and recognition they deserve and help better inform the business of advertising and marketing across the board.
We will send the elevator back down so that new riders emerge at their destination faster, smarter, and more confident. We’ll leverage our successes to bring more Black marketing professionals into the fold through mentorship, internship, scholarship and sponsorship. We’ll strengthen the pipeline of current and future Black talent, instilling greater pride and determination to succeed.
Meet the BECA Team
Jerri DeVard
BECA Founder & CEO
Jerri DeVard has been a Chief Marketing Officer at several Fortune 100 companies and serves as a director on several corporate boards.
