INDUSTRY: HOSPITALITY
YEAR FOUNDED: 1994
PARTNER COLLEGE: LONG BEACH CITY COLLEGE, COHORT 5

Michelle worked all over the country running hotels and managing hundreds of employees. While working in Anaheim, she got an offer that would transfer her once again, but she was happy in California and wanted to settle down and build her life there.“I didn’t stay anywhere for more than a year or two. I wanted to put down some roots,” she recalls. “So, I decided to open my own company, thinking it would be easy. But it was a rude awakening.”

From raising capital to recruiting and interviewing job candidates to building a client base, the challenges abounded. She joined the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) where she was connected with the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program in 2012.

Through 10,000 Small Businesses, Michelle took classes, partnered with a business coach and was able to focus more on strategy rather than operations. She furthered her business education and refined her strategy by participating in back-to-back Los Angeles cohorts of Inner City Capital Connections in 2018 and 2019.

“I’m a lifelong learner. They were great programs,” she says. “That was the first time I stepped away from my business. I was able to really focus on the growth of my business.”

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