This is a guest post from Black Business Initiative Society
(Member since 1996)
Halifax is a city deeply rooted in culture — both old and new. It is a big part of what makes it so attractive to newcomers and entrepreneurs hoping to add to what is quickly becoming a world-class hub for diversification and innovation. And no one understands this better than Rustum Southwell, the founding Chief Executive Officer of the Black Business Initiative (BBI), an organization that is also truly unique in its own right.
“The BBI was founded as a way to meet the particular needs of the black business community,” says Southwell, who came to Halifax 45 years ago from Saint Kitts. Since its inception in 1996, Southwell and the BBI have helped launch or expand hundreds of blackowned and operated businesses that continue to have a significant economic impact in the community.
“We play a vital role in business development and we provide a full gamut of services in terms of business skills development, coaching and networking to the black community,” Southwell adds.
Southwell, whose resume is an impressive culmination of decades of giving back to his community, actually retired in 2012. But two years ago, he came back to help usher the BBI into a new phase of what he hopes will be another 20 years of positive growth for what is becoming a growing community of young, black leaders. His relentless passion and deep understanding of the unique needs of the community has helped create more than 1,000 jobs and trained another 1,000 people that have gone on to become key players in some of the top-performing companies in the province and Canada. In fact, Southwell’s efforts through the BBI have contributed combined sales of more than $1 billion to the economy he says, a truly impressive number by any standards.
Since the Ivany Report was released in 2014 as a means to help kick start and revitalize Nova Scotia’s fledging economy, it has become the benchmark in terms of its recommendations and objectives for the province’s economic leaders, entrepreneurs and businesses. The iconic report set 19 ambitious goals for businesses to strive to meet by 2024, including such things as increasing the province’s exports and immigration, as well as fostering an environment for business startups, innovation and even doubling tourism revenues.
“We have not only had a significant impact on the Nova Scotia economy but we believe we have made significant strides in 11 of the areas recommended in the Ivany report,” Southwell says, one of those key areas being tourism.
“Only a few years ago we had only one option — the Black Cultural Centre. Now, five years later, the Black Cultural Centre has had a complete refurbishment and the Africville church has been reconstructed, which was a million-dollar job that contributed significantly to the economy,” he explains.
For Southwell though, his real passion lies with the youth of the province. “We place a strong emphasis on youth training and development through our Business is Jammin’ program [BIJ],” he says. BIJ is a key and a vital program run through the BBI that is aimed at reaching what Southwell says has historically been a particularly vulnerable sector of the population.
The program’s goal is to instill a comprehensive entrepreneurship learning strategy in school-aged kids by teaching them the necessary business skills they will need to become future leaders in the community. “We found that the youth we became involved with when they were 10 or 11 are more successful later on,” Southwell says, who adds that in the last 10 years alone, they have helped inspire thousands of kids to stay in school who may have otherwise fallen through the cracks. These kids have gone on to hold key positions within the workplace and even become some of the communities leading entrepreneurs.
“When looking back at our accomplishments we found that in 2001 until 2006 that 56 per cent of the companies [in Nova Scotia] were employing [on average] four of our youth,” he adds. And those numbers can only increase since participation in the BIJ program in just the past two years has grown by more than 60 per cent, which is why Southwell says one of his key agendas moving forward is to create a youth leadership academy that will mentor school-aged kids and follow them through on their path to what he believes will be a successful future.
“I think I was just lucky to be chosen as the person honoured to work with the organization and to take it in the direction that it seems to be going,” he says. “My leadership style is to spend more time listening to what people have to say and then do what is needed to resolve the issues in need,” something that has obviously been working for Southwell whose decades of dedication and commitment to advocating for the African Nova Scotian community has resulted in the economic prosperity for many Nova Scotians and the province in general.
“One of the things that we don’t speak about much, apart from the actual businesses development skills and opportunities we offer through the BBI, is the confidence we provide our community members. We play a significant part in that, always trying to live up to the best standards, always trying to put our community members into situations they may not necessarily like or feel comfortable in, but ones that will make them better,” he explains.
As we celebrate Black History Month, it is important to look at the contributions this culturally vibrant community brings to the province. “I don’t think most people realize that black folks play a significant role in the economy and the companies [in the province],” demonstrated in the more than $1 billion in sales they are directly and indirectly responsible for, according to Southwell.
While statistically, about 25 per cent of the businesses in the province are black owned or operated, Soutwell says those numbers are realistically much higher and something he hopes will continue to grow as the BBI evolves and reaches out to more community members. And while Southwell thinks he was lucky to be involved with the BBI since its beginnings, he says we are all very lucky to be able to attract the many bright, young minds of those in the black community.
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