TELLING OUR STORY Atlanta Business League Podcasts
Successful African American business and professional people in Atlanta, GA share stories about their lives and explain how their careers evolved based on the choices they made. Two different podcast series are part of this broadcast. LESSONS from LEADERS allows individuals to talk about their achievements. ABL DUOs interviews two professionals about one topic. All episodes started as part of the Atlanta Business League's official 90th anniversary celebration in 2023. The new season began in 2025.
Episodes
The purpose of this audio podcast series is to introduce listeners to successful African American business owners based in Atlanta and Georgia. This episode is different. You’re introduced to one man, Lonnie A. Saboor. But his passion for the last 50 years has been to help small business owners become successful. Most know him as the man who led the City of Atlanta’s economic development department for more than 4...
This episode follows the career highlights of Willie Watkins, a mortician.
Willie doesn't like the word mortician. He starts the podcast explaining that he is an undertaker and then provides his definition of what an undertaker does. It is unlike anything you have ever heard because Willie Watkins understands how to grab a person's attention. He does that when he speaks and he does that when he stages fune...
Kent Matlock’s success is partially based on the fact that he has been guided by extraordinary men and women. Each of those influential people was focused on actions that were for the good of the greater community. But those actions also affected Kent as a developing professional in Atlanta.
His first major life event took place at age 13. That’s when he morphed from being an average inner-city young person into a...
This is a story about storytellers. Janis Ware has published the Atlanta Voice for 42 years. It's a newspaper written for the African-American audience in Atlanta, GA.
But there's more to her life's work. It starts with her father, J. Lowell Ware an immensely talented and hardworking man who honored a deathbed request that changed his life. Lowell was far-sighted, creative and had an extr...
This podcast is about two legal warriors who have spent the last 30 years protecting the concepts of equity in the courts, through analysis and by helping municipalities create policies that withstand assault.
Rodney Strong and Delmarie Griffin are also a married couple who have come together from very different backgrounds.
Delmarie was raised in Columbus, GA and attended an HBCU as an undergradu...
This podcast is a 30 minute history lesson.
When you listen, you'll hear stories about Black entrepreneurs who lived in 1800s, 1900s and 20th century that will make your jaw drop. That's because William F. Pickard, Ph.D. qualifies to be a part of this series for two reasons. He's a very successful Black business owner with more than 50 years of experience that includes owning a McDonald...
This is an episode about the second generation of an incredible African American family. We describe the topics discussed as generational continuance.
Herman Jerome Russell founded his Atlanta based construction company in 1952. He made it one of the largest Black owned companies in the United States and then diversified. He owned a beer distributorship. He managed real estate and he raised three childr...
Milton Jones, Jr. is one of the most respected business leaders in Atlanta, GA. He has a professional history in finance that spans decades and can trace his family tree back generations in Atlanta.
However, there's one characteristic about him that almost everyone knows. Milton's mathematical skills are so formidable that he has a nickname. He's known as the walking calculator. It&apo...
The most important thing to know about T. Dallas Smith and Leonte Benton is that they are not quitters. That shared characteristic has allowed them to make history. T. Dallas broke barriers in commercial real estate by becoming the first African American broker in the Atlanta market and possibly the state of Georgia. He started his career, officially, in 1982 and immediately learned it’s a very insular business. ...
Shirley Clark Franklin is remembered by most people as being the 58th mayor for the City of Atlanta, Georgia. However, she had more than 20 years in various positions of city government that gave her a firm grasp on organizational structure.
But her leadership training began much earlier than that.
Shirley grew up in Philadelphia, PA. and had unique life experiences. She spent years training ...
This is a special edition of Atlanta Business League DUOs. It features interviews from two Herman J. Russell CEO of the Year award recipients and the person conducting both interviews is ABL Chair Emeritus Albert G. Edwards.
These three men are powerhouse leaders.
Greer is the Co-President of Greenberg Traurig, an international law firm that has more than 2,500 attorneys.
Womack is th...
Roosevelt Giles could only attend school, as a child, when it rained. Yet, he was such a talented technology person that a Republican billionaire from South Carolina, USA, sought him out and mentored him.
As a result, Roosevelt became an incredible international business owner with technical skills that were so impressive that he was a keynote speaker at major conferences all of the country. He sat on sta...
When Andrella Kenner was a little girl her mother exposed her to a series of aviation professionals in Nashville, Tennessee airport. That information gave her the foundation necessary to establish an aerospace, information technology and aviation company that operates in three countries and 22 locations.
What position did Andrella's mother hold at the airport? She was a waitress.
This podc...
There are very lucrative industries that aren't considered glamorous. The fast food industry falls in that category for most people, but not for Mack Wilbourn, Jr. He owns an Atlanta, GA based company named Mack II. It has operated for more than 50 years and has allowed Mack to develop extraordinary business partnerships.
He is the franchise operator for more than five fast food brands that operate...
The sale of cars, travel and dealerships has a history in African-American communities that is often ignored or unknown. That's why the story of Gregory and Juanita Baranco is so inspiring. They own two Mercedes Benz car dealerships. One is in one of the ritziest zip codes in Atlanta, Ga and the other is in their home state of Louisiana.
In this episode of ABL DUOs you will hear stories about three...
This is the final episode created for Black Music Month, which is in June. This broadcast completes a trilogy of information about the business side of music as experienced by the professionals who are in the industry.
Peabo Bryson is unique in this category because, at the time of his interview, he has been a performer for 58 years.
His life story is fascinating. It also covers a variety of to...
This episode takes a look at what structured business planning looks like at the beginning of a person's career in a creative industry.
This is the story of Jacques and Maretta Johnson; mother and son.
Jacques, in June 2023, is a 26-year-old musician. He's had a mild degree of success, has opened for internationally known acts and has his own reality TV program on a local station. ...
June is Black Music Month in the United States.
This episode of LESSONS from LEADERS actually offers a mini-lesson about the music industry from the perspective of a professional who has been able to experience it from two different views.
Frank Ski is the professional name of a radio personality who has been entertaining African-American audiences in major markets up and down the East coast for...
Friendship and respect, in a challenging academic setting, helped mold two women into history making captains of industries.
Before Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice became President and Dean of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA she studied chemical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. That's where she met Wonya Lucas, another chem-E student.
Both were young, extremely brig...
Science and business are not two topics that ordinarily operate in sync. But this episode of LESSONS from LEADERS focuses on the achievements of an extraordinary man.
Lonnie Johnson's name might jog something in your memory that makes you smile. That's because he's the acknowledged inventor of the Super Soaker a powerful water gun that, at one time, was the best selling toy in the world.
...
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