Melinda Weekes-Laidlow
Social Change Architect Founder & CEO at Beautiful Ventures
Melinda Weekes-Laidlow, Esq. is the Founder/CEO of Beautiful Ventures, a narrative change social enterprise that influences popular culture, disrupts anti-blackness and elevates perceptions of Black humanity. Melinda is also President of Weekes In Advance Enterprises , an organizational development firm offering consulting, facilitation, leadership advising, and antiracism skillbuilding in the arts and entertainment, non-profit and social innovation sectors. As Graduate Professor of Management at Marlboro College, Melinda taught at the intersections of racial equity, design thinking and leadership. In 2015, leading social impact fund Echoing Green named Melinda its first-ever Social Entrepreneur in Residence. Melinda is honored to render service to institutions that have profoundly shaped her life -- as member of the Advisory Board of Wesleyan University’s Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, the ministerial staff of the Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York and of the Board of Directors at the Interaction Institute for Social Change.