Financial educator and entrepreneur to lead new ‘Banking in Color’ virtual boot camp

Charlene Fadirepo of Washington, D.C., will lead “Banking in Color: Banking for the Black Entrepreneur,” a four-session virtual boot camp hosted by the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center that begins May 3.

Fadirepo is the founder and CEO of Guidefi, a fin-tech startup she launched in 2019. The Guidefi platform connects women and people of color with culturally competent, credible, and affordable financial advisors. She is also a financial educator and banker with two decades of experience in financial services.

Fadirepo got her start as a financial analyst at Citigroup. She completed her MBA at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in May 2009. For the next 10 years, she focused her career on making the banking industry more inclusive. After six years as a bank regulation consulting manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers, she joined the Federal Reserve Board of Governors as a bank regulation expert.

During the boot camp, Fadirepo will discuss the gaps in access to funding that Black entrepreneurs and business owners face, from basic banking to venture capital, and offer practical solutions to close the gaps.

Participants will complete a self-assessment to better understand their current and future small business banking needs, including everything from lines of credit to bank accounts to capital funding.

The weekly sessions are on Monday evenings from 6-8 p.m. May 3, 10, 17, and 24. There is no fee to participate. Pre-registration is required and can be found here.

For more information, contact ASBTDC Inclusion and Diversity Specialist Pamela Reed at pmreed@ualr.edu or (501) 804-6771. This event is co-sponsored by Remix Ideas.