31. Be Curious with Aimee Eubanks Davis, CEO, Braven

Are you a curious leader?

For this Women of Color Rise episode, Analiza talks with African American leader Aimée Eubanks Davis, Founder and CEO of Braven. Braven works to ensure underrepresented college students develop the skills, confidence, experiences and networks to get strong first jobs after graduation. Aimée spent the majority of her career at Teach For America leading the organization’s groundbreaking work around its human capital and diversity efforts. After graduating from Mt. Holyoke College, she taught sixth grade and led the Breakthrough New Orleans site. She is a 2019 Obama Foundation Fellow, Pahara-Aspen fellow, and lives in Chicago with her husband and three children.

While Aimée did not set out to become CEO, one of the keys to ascent was her curiosity. She was curious about the problems around her: how to make her Breakthrough local site one of the most effective sites in the country, how to scale best practices to all sites, how to address Teach for America’s diversity problem, and how to help underrepresented college students thrive at their first job. She even applied curiosity to her personal life – setting an intention to find a partner who was mature enough to know themselves and plan out how to set up childcare so that she could continue to rise in her career.

In Women of Color Rise, we talk about the importance of Knowing Yourself, knowing what gives you energy and surrounding yourself with people with shared values. Aimée is a great example of this – she did not have a set career path, and instead stayed open and curious following what excited her and the “gray” stretch opportunities with people she admired like Wendy Kopp, Founder and CEO of Teach for America.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://analizawolf.com/ep-31-be-curious-with-aimee-eubanks-davis-ceo-braven