The Art of Black Genius: Gwendolyn Wright
Meet Gwendolyn
Gwendolyn Wright is the Managing Consultant of The Wright Consultants LLC, established in 1995, where she helps to start and grow small businesses, increase entrepreneurs’ access to capital and improve their financial acumen. Her social responsibility goals are to make a difference in the lives of entrepreneurs of color and underserved micro-enterprises by partnering with non-profit organizations that share her mission including Renaissance, SBDC, SF Made and African American Art and Culture Complex to name a few. Gwendolyn has earned a reputation for having an astute, contemporary management style with vision and discernment. She works with various types of companies ranging from ecommerce, service, retail, and wholesale to manufacturing and distribution. Sweet spots of focus include the food industry, fashion apparel and accessories, beauty and skin care, creatives, designers, and makers.
She has managed, advised, and coached more than 4,800 start-ups, emerging expanding businesses. Economic impact on the small business community includes access to capital endeavors totaling over $240,000,000 in loans and equity contributions, helping business owners generate approximately 1.2 billion in revenue, create, and maintain 12,000 jobs. Plus, she has authored, analyzed, and critiqued close to 1500 business plans, with close to 500 hours of facilitating workshops and webinars.
Clients are local and global. International projects include Italy, Cambodia, Australia, and Mexico City. Continuous market research, industry tradeshows, and trend analysis projects has taken her around the globe to London, Hong Kong, Beijing, Panama, Johannesburg, Accra, Paris, and Tokyo.
Gwendolyn serves on the San Francisco Women’s Entrepreneurship Fund review and approval Board since 2018, focusing on providing grants to microenterprises across the city. She is also on the Advisory Board of the San Francisco Fashion and Merchants Alliance, an educational and economic development organization supporting fashion, design and technology entrepreneurs, startups, and creative communities since 2017. She was awarded the Small Business Finance Advocate of the Year Award by the Small Business Administration and participated in a congressional trade mission to South Africa and Ghana with Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Education includes Bachelor of Arts, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, Graduate study, Business Administration, Golden Gate University, San Francisco, Commercial Lending Graduate School, Corporate Banking Division, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. She recently completed a certification program at the University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School Aresty Institute of Executive Education focused on the Economics of Blockchain Technology and Digital Assets.