Brittney Bogues grew up in an arena. Her father, Tyrone “Muggsy” Bogues, was drafted into the NBA the same year she was born: 1987. He soon emerged as a star for the Charlotte Hornets and eventually debuted in the live-action comedy, “Space Jam.” Meanwhile, his daughter lived and breathed basketball. 

“I grew up hanging out with Stephen Curry,” says Bogues. “I went to every home game.”

Today, 34 years later, her passion for the sport shines through in her “go hard or go home” leadership style. As the owner and founder of Bogues Consulting Group, a PR firm rooted in Charlotte, Bogues believes in bringing her A-game to every ghostwriting project and media planning session.

We sat down with Bogues to hear more about what it takes to be a female entrepreneur in the Queen City and what’s next for her business.  

On your website, you mention that you have a “go hard or go home” leadership style. What does that mean? What’s a good leader?

“Go hard or go home” means bringing your A-game. My team is great because we put our clients first. But we also make sure that we take time off for ourselves and treat ourselves well so that we can give our clients the best product. That’s how I lead. I try to stress work-life balance and team bonding so that people feel supported and heard. 

Leadership all comes back to self-awareness. A good leader is someone who knows what they don’t know. Even though I have my graduate degree and experience, I don’t have all the answers. That’s why I’ve built a team — because there are things I know I don’t bring to the table. 

Throughout your career, you have been very focused on women’s rights. You worked at a domestic violence and sexual assault shelter, for instance. Now, at Bogues Group, you offer the C-Suite Boss Camp for women. What, in your opinion, has changed regarding the culture of women in the workforce? What still needs to change?

What’s exciting now is that more women are launching their own businesses, especially during the pandemic. That’s so exciting. Women have always had passion and drive, but society’s expectations and norms have stunted their growth. 

I’m a huge nerd and love looking at statistics. So, women make up almost 50 percent of the workforce but just 25 percent of leadership. Then, if you look specifically at the C-suite, it’s just ten percent of women. And, if you dig deeper, only two percent of women in C-suite positions are women of color. Those numbers just don’t make sense to me. The math isn’t mathin’, as the cool kids say.  

My partner and I wanted to create spaces and places where women could see other women doing it. That’s where the C-Suite Boss Camp idea came from. This whole initiative is about seeing what you want. And, if you do want to be a leader, having the resources and access to women who can help you get to the next level. We had our in-person even pre-pandemic and hearing from those women was so inspiring and refreshing.

Three years ago, you left the nonprofit sector to start your own business. What can you do now, on your own, that you couldn’t do before?

Let me start by saying that I don’t think everybody should be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is risky and a lot depends on you. You have to be truly motivated, even when things aren’t going your way. But, for me, seeing my vision come to life makes it all worth it. Being an entrepreneur gives you the freedom of deciding what your day looks like — when you start it, when you end it, and how you create your work-life balance. 

You mentioned that entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. Can you unpack that?

If you don’t have the hustle to endure not knowing if you’re going to get a client and not knowing what tomorrow may look like, entrepreneurship isn’t for you. 

Plus, entrepreneurship isn’t for everybody because not everyone wants to lead. In the beginning, a lot of the work is on you. But as you grow, you have to learn to delegate. You have to learn to create systems of delegation and automation. You have to support and highlight your team’s strengths because that’s what makes everybody better. It’s a collective effort.   

How do you blend your personal passions with your professional aspirations in a way that’s profitable for your company?

Consulting keeps me happy because I’m passionate about many different things. At the core, I’m doing what I went to school for — marketing and communications. But I’m working with clients from so many different backgrounds that it doesn’t get boring. 

I’ve also learned that you want to stay true and authentic to your brand. If it’s not something that you’re authentically passionate about, how can you be an ambassador for it? So, I center my personal and work life around faith, family, and health. As for health, I’ve lost over 50 pounds and maintained it, so living a healthier life has helped me have a healthier business. 

My passion for health is why we’re focused on getting into the CBD industry right now. We see all the benefits of CBD. But we also see all the legalities that they face and we think that more could be done to tell a story about how CBD is changing lives. 

What advice do you wish you could give your younger self?

Lean on your faith and just be fearless. Life is short — you’re not promised tomorrow. So, go after it. Believe in yourself.

Sometimes being fearless is easier said than done. Is it challenging to take your own advice? 

Definitely, but I have mentors in my life. For example, when I started my first business — All In PR in 2011 — I talked to a few people because I was scared. They said, “If you fail, you can still use this as a learning opportunity. Your resume will show that you literally created a business. Then, you use that experience to parlay into something else.” And that’s exactly what I did. 

So, taking the leap is easier said than done. However, the mentors in my life have helped me take action throughout my career. 

Just because you have reached this goal of founding your own company doesn’t mean your journey has ended. So, what’s something new that you’re learning right now?

First of all, I’m learning to play golf. That’s been a fun and humbling experience for me. 

But I’m also learning about the power of learning what you don’t know. So, I’ve joined a forum that meets for four hours every month. During that time, you meet with advisors and delve into business strategy. It’s a professional development opportunity that I’m excited about. I’m looking forward to what that can do for my personal and professional growth, but also my business and team.

You also have your own vlog. Is that something you taught yourself recently?

Yes, I learned that recently. Social media has been its own kind of whirlwind. I’ve been doing social media for others for so long. But now, learning to do it for me has been a very interesting experience. It’s been a great way to connect with people in the community and also with my family members. 

I had my family members record an episode of “Family Feud” and it was hilarious. Vlogging helps me not take myself too seriously. I can be a super serious person, especially when I get these goals in my head and I’m just trying to knock them out. But I’m working on trying to be present. I realized that we’re sometimes on autopilot. So, my goal is to be intentionally present when I’m with someone.

Cheryl Butler’s parents were perturbed by her pivot in her new career. At least at first.

After studying accountancy at Johnson C. Smith University and securing a full-time position at a credit rating business, Butler became restless. She was living the American Dream, but she felt bored and disinterested. And so, after seven years, she quit her corporate gig to pursue her career as a full time cosmetologist and open StudioEast Styling Salon.

“My parents couldn’t fathom the idea that I would leave this job with a salary, benefits, and stability to style hair,” says Butler. “That’s how simple it was for them.” 

Today, nearly 20 years later, StudioEast is thriving. That’s because Butler, a “master stylist,” offers much more than haircuts and highlights. As a small business owner, she feels a certain responsibility to mentor other aspiring female entrepreneurs. We sat down with Butler to hear more about woman-to-woman mentorship, cosmetology, and passion.    

Where did your love for hair come from?

I grew up in a hair salon. My sister is a hairstylist and she’s about 17 years older than me. When I got to high school, I started working with my sister. I would assist her by blow-drying or shampooing clients. Those skills just stuck with me.

Then, when I was in college, I started using my skills. I started doing friends’ hair and those friends became paying customers. I had a small, but not necessarily legal, business in my dormitory for about four years. It kept some change in my pocket.

You earned a degree in accountancy and were living the American Dream at a corporate job. Why did you leave that behind?

I have more passion for serving others by doing their hair than by crunching numbers. But it took me a long time to open my salon. Right out of college, I went to work for a credit rating company called Moody’s Investors Service. I enrolled in cosmetology school part-time a few months after I started that job. Then, after I graduated from cosmetology school, I started working part-time in a salon while still working full-time in corporate America. I did that for seven years between two salons. After the sixth year, I realized that I just wasn’t passionate about my corporate job in the same way I was about the salon.

I could be creative and innovative in the salon even after working for eight hours at Moody’s Moody’s Investors Service. I had a second wind. It was like I was starting my day all over again. My clientele was growing so much that I would go to the salon at 6 a.m. before my 8-to-5 job. Then, I would go to work. At 5 p.m., I would rush back to the salon for afternoon appointments. It was just common sense — I could see that I had so much more passion for hairstyling.

What about your corporate job didn’t jive with your personality and lifestyle?

When I was in corporate America, I enjoyed the people, but I never developed a passion for the job. It was just that — a job. I was crunching numbers and I knew the product. I had even grown in the company, transitioning from an analyst to an editor. But I realized that the job was no longer interesting to me. It was the same thing, month after month after month. It was the same information, the same data, the same timeline. Nothing was ever different.

Another thing that bothered me about the corporate world was that I had to wait a whole year for someone to tell me that I was doing a great job. There was no instant gratification. But in the salon, it’s all instant gratification. When a client reschedules with me, it’s like they’re saying, “Hey, I appreciate you.” When they send a referral, it’s like they’re saying, “You’re doing such a great job that I want everybody to experience what you have to offer.”

Did you receive pushback from friends and family when you left your corporate job?

I most certainly did from my parents, who paid my tuition and put me through school. They were concerned about security. They wanted to make sure I could provide for myself. It was hard to tell my parents that this was what I wanted to do. The saving grace was that I didn’t rush. I didn’t just jump into it. It was definitely a leap of faith, but I planned. I didn’t have to move back home or sell my car. I was still able to take care of myself, and that helped.

My friends didn’t judge because they saw me working so hard. They saw me working two jobs. They saw my social life diminish to nothing. They saw me working in the morning and the evenings. They saw that I couldn’t accept invites for events. Sometimes, if I did go out, I would just fall asleep because I was so tired. But I had a goal and a purpose.

Tell us about the early days of your salon.

When I first started, I was working part-time in a salon as a booth renter. It was a small space for a reduced price. It was pennies — maybe $75 a week. I worked there for four years and then I went to a spa as an independent contractor. Then, in 2002, I opened StudioEast Styling Salon in a 1,200-square-foot building. I was there until March 2020. I downsized just before things closed because of COVID-19. I’m in a salon suite now.

You’ve owned your salon for nearly 20 years. How do you ensure that your business doesn’t stagnate?

In 20 years, I did sustain and grow a great business it was definitely not completely stagnated by the change in our community around us. 

Marketing and branding were an expenditure we could not afford to work without. We ran commercials on Time Warner, annual print ads in the USA Black Pages and a sponsorship walk with “Bottles and Bottoms.  I continually provided advanced training to new and existing stylists.  I offered business training and coached stylist to assist them with growing their own strong clientele.  We traveled to trade shows and participated in community events like “For Sister’s Only” to build a strong team that worked well together. We even sponsored a Live Television show here in the Queen City “Give Me The Mic Charlotte”, I drove for a teamwork environment that would promote our business and better service our clients.  We also used exclusive professional products only that set us apart. Providing a warm, clean and welcoming professional environment was a huge part of our customer service. The environment around us changed over the years. 

I did stagnate, out of fear. I knew for a while that I needed to relocate my salon. The environment around it was changing. There was less foot traffic of potential clients and more panhandling. A lot of people were hanging around and they weren’t always pleasant. The experience that occurred on the inside of my salon didn’t match the outside.

I needed my stylists to feel like this was a place where they could grow. I knew that it was time to make the change. I dragged my feet because the location was convenient to my home and my son’s school. I wish I had moved forward faster.

Small business owners are constantly growing and evolving. What’s something new that you’re learning right now?

COVID-19 was unfortunate overall. However, for my business, it was a blessing. It gave me time to reorganize and restructure. For a while now, I have wanted to become more of a business operator. I have wanted to get out from behind the chair and run, manage, and grow the salon. But that has been hard because I wear so many hats.

While we were home from March to June, I was able to reorganize my business by making calculated decisions. I looked at my time — how much time I was spending with a client and how often the client came to me. I also looked at my products. There are only so many services or clients I can do, so retail is important. I needed to make sure I was offering my clients products that could help them. If they aren’t going to buy hair products from me, they’re going to buy them from somewhere else. I reimagined my business plan completely.  My advice, trust the process, be prepared to pivot, plan, prepare and move forward when the need arrives.

As a female business owner, what do you think needs to change to help more women become entrepreneurs?

In this industry, female hairstylists have more many challenges because we’re mothers, we’re homemakers, and we’re caregivers. We’re more stretched than our male counterparts when it comes to home/work balance in many cases. My fiancée works for himself as well, our work loads are somewhat different when I get off work at the end of the day than his home responsibilities. The long hours and the 7-day work week required to grow a strong business in the beginning is challenging if you have a family and you are a mother. That might be because when women are more focused on business than family, it’s judged. Women support groups and more shared responsibility all the way around would even out the playing field.  

Also, when I talk to people in this industry, they’ll say, “Oh, it’s hard to work for women.” Or they’ll say, “Women are so catty. I’d rather work for a guy.” That’s something we need to improve on. We need to respect and honor the leadership of women in business.

Minji Ro is not who you would expect to see on Wall Street. She’s Asian, gay, and a woman. But she’s never been too interested in maintaining the status quo. 

Ro, who studied mathematical methods at Northwestern University, worked in sales and trading for over a decade. She started her career as an analyst at Merrill Lynch in 2006 but left eight months later for a position at Goldman Sachs in part because of the homophobia she encountered. 

In the years to come, Ro would focus on helping the underdog— recruiting and mentoring other young professionals who didn’t fit the white, heteronormative mold. In 2016, she partnered with coworker Bill Shelton to provide career coaching to professional athletes who would soon be transitioning out of their sport. The program was so successful that both Ro and Shelton quit their day jobs three years ago to make it a full time endeavor. 

Ro is now the Co-Chief Executive Officer of Evolution of Sports, an organization that works to change the future of athletes all around the world. Ro also co-founded Parity, an online marketplace that matches professional women athletes with social media marketing opportunities. Ro took time out of her busy schedule to talk basketball, equity and inclusion, and progressive workplace policies.       

You’re an avid basketball player — a four-time rec champion, no less. Have you played basketball your whole life?

Yes! I started playing when I was five. I was never good enough to make a go of it and I didn’t have the financial means to really take it seriously. I was also a huge nerd. But I continued to play in high school and then I played on the club team at Northwestern University. I continued to play as an adult in the New York City Gay Basketball League. I think it’s the greatest sport ever. 

Why do you think basketball is the greatest sport ever?

Basketball is nearly non-stop. There’s always something happening and it’s relatively straightforward. You try to get the ball into the hoop — that’s it. 

What skills has basketball taught you that you’ve taken off the court and into the office?

There’s a bunch of research that shows how a huge percentage of women CEOs and executive leaders have played sports. So that question is spot-on — there are many parallels between sport and work. Basketball, for instance, is a team sport. There are positions on the court. Every player has a job and every job is different. Being good at basketball can mean a lot of different things. You need somebody who’s very tall. You need somebody who’s dedicated to defense. You need somebody who’s going to be vocal and organize everything. Basketball and work are alike in that you don’t want five of the exact same person on your team. Intelligence comes in a lot of different forms and understanding the ideal mix of people is key. 

In NYC Gay Basketball League, you volunteer to be a captain and, if you’re a captain, you draft your team. So on draft day, all the new players come into the gym and run a bunch of drills. All the captains are there watching to see what those players’ different skills and styles are. You can see people’s personalities come through in terms of how they play.

When it was time to draft your team, people had all different strategies. Some people only picked their friends. I took a totally different approach even though it was just rec, because I wanted to win.  So I always tried to draft the best available players who played team basketball. 

Circling back to your last answer, you mentioned that women who play sports are more likely to fill senior leadership positions. Why do you think that is?

90 percent of women C-suite execs played sports at some point in their lives and more than half played sports at the college level. As to why, I would say that being on a team and understanding what that means is valuable in most professional settings. If you’re a CEO, by definition, you’re running a company. You’re working with a bunch of different people and trying to figure out how to work towards a shared goal.

Second, you’re always being coached as an athlete. You’re always getting feedback. There’s always somebody telling you how to be better. I think people who can receive feedback and grow from it are probably more likely to succeed anywhere in life. 

Lastly, I think women who play sports are likely to have a shared interest with men. Professionally, senior-level roles are still mostly male-dominated so I would imagine playing sports helps women network with men. It gives you something to talk about and makes you approachable. Networking is a big factor in helping people have successful careers. 

Tell me about Evolution of Sports. How did that organization start?

I founded Evolution of Sports with my co-CEO. He’s my BFF and we’ve been working together for nearly 15 years now. We were the most unlikely duo, especially in finance. I’m Asian, gay, and kind of irreverent. He’s a 57-year-old giant, black, bald guy. We went against the grain a bit on Wall Street generally because we didn’t look like the typical person you would find working on the trading floor of Goldman Sachs.

He and I have two big things in common. One, we’re both sports nuts. Two, because of what we look like and our backgrounds, we’ve always had this very intense focus on not just perpetuating the status quo. On Wall Street, that involved a lot of recruiting and mentoring. We wanted students to know that people can look different and still be successful. We wanted to make sure that we were constantly bringing in different viewpoints. So that’s what really cemented our professional relationship and then, eventually, our personal relationship. 

He and I started Evolution of Sports while we were still working full-time. It was just a passion project that we worked on outside of work hours. At that point, it was a career coaching and mentorship program for professional athletes who can’t be professional athletes forever. He was on the board of USA Track and Field and we both had a ton of experience in resume writing, interviewing, networking — all of those career transition skills.

When we started, it was very manageable. The program just involved ten athletes and we were being paid by USA Track and Field. It went really well and they wanted to increase the program to include 30 or 40 athletes. At that point, we had to decide to either shut down the company because we couldn’t manage it while having a day job or quit our day jobs. That was three years ago. 

When it comes to creating an inclusive culture, are there things you can do now that you couldn’t do when you worked on Wall Street? 

From a recruiting standpoint, there were a bunch of guidelines and processes in place at the banks. For example, when we were reviewing resumes to fill summer internship slots in finance, there was a recommended GPA cutoff of 3.5. You had to have something really extraordinary if you were below that cutoff. There were also target schools that we were very focused on hiring from.

Now, one of the biggest changes is that we hire whoever we want to hire. Do I really care that you have a college degree? No, not really. Do you have a lower GPA because you had this really cool side project? That’s what I actually care about. The more interesting you are, the more appealing you are to us. At the end of the day, I care that you can do the job effectively, not that you rowed crew at Harvard. 

Your hiring approach parallels your drafting approach with the New York City Gay Basketball League — you pick people who will help you win. You’re playing by your own rules.  

Totally. That’s a very succinct encapsulation. 

So besides hiring who you want, what other freedoms does running your own organization afford you?

I have to decide what the thing is going to look like. I’m starting with a blank sheet of paper — a totally blank Google search bar. For instance, I have to decide how often we do a performance review. Well, we actually don’t want to offer performance reviews because we want to be giving feedback all the time. You shouldn’t be waiting every six months to get a sense of if things are going well. You should know every day. That’s a specific example of what we try to do differently. 

Obviously, gender equality is also something that’s important to us. So we wrote our parental leave policy from scratch. The finance industry actually has one of the most progressive maternity leave policies but it has a terrible paternity leave policy. What’s typical is four months paid for birthing mothers and two weeks paid for dads. That made no sense because parents are parents. We believe having a kid is a big deal and you should spend a lot of time with your kids, even if you’re not the woman giving birth. We landed at four months paid for moms and then two months for supporting parents and want to extend it as our company grows. 

What’s another progressive workplace policy you would like to implement?

I’m definitely intrigued by the four-day workweek. Obviously, you have to see the data and understand how they’re collecting it, but it seems like the four-day workweek is eminently doable. That’s definitely on my radar. 

What female athletes inspire you?

There’s a woman on my team at Evolution of Sports and her name is Kara Winger. She’s literally the best javelin thrower our country has ever produced. Kara has been throwing for 14 years and, out of those 14 years, she’s been the national champion eight times. All the other times, she’s either been second or third. 

Kara reminds me of this quote that says, “Being great is just being good every day.” I love this quote because a lot of people have a string of amazing days but then they drop off the face of the planet. They’re completely unreliable, but they have these magical moments every once in a while. They draw you in and let you down. Kara is the opposite. Kara is consistent and reliable all the time, which is what makes her excellent. 

My other pick, which I’m also certain you’ll never have heard of, is a basketball player named Jasmine Thomas. She’s not a super high-scoring all-star or the face of the WNBA but if you watch her teams and how they play, she’s the glue. She’s the organizer. She’s that quiet consistent force. She shows up the same way every single game. Reliability and consistency are things that are really important to me.