Imani Ellis, CEO of CultureCon, makes creating space for black entrepreneurs and creators her business

Thousands of creators, business owners, entrepreneurs, and freelancers look forward to the dynamic programming, activations, and unparalleled headliners The Creative Collective NYC hosts at CultureCon. This year is no different. Except he's officially returning to New York in person after going virtual during the pandemic. Imani Ellis, Founder and CEO of CultureCon and The Creative Collective (TheCCnyc), says this year will be a reminder of a homecoming.

"CultureCon was born in New York. So it's absolutely kind of a homecoming that we're going to have," Ellis said.

Reunion celebrations within Black culture are deeply rooted in celebrating the best of who we are and what the community has to offer one another. One of these offers is the gift of collaboration. CultureCon is an innovation hub where people can find inspiration, new connections, business partners, and more. In 2016, that's what Ellis envisioned. Now the seed of her idea has borne fruit as she has built her team, the business and TheCCnyc community to over 100,000 members.

"When you talk about the evolution of an idea, I think the best part is that once the idea enters the world and in the hands of collaboration, it can become much more than what than you might have originally anticipated. That's what comes out of CultureCon, the collaboration," Ellis said. "Behind the scenes, there's a powerful group of us. Each in their zone of genius doing what they do best. And the product of that is CultureCon."

There is power in collaboration

It is essential to know how to identify opportunities for collaboration.

"Whether you had a dream and worked with your friends, or worked with your family, or made new friends and built something, I think it's been very powerful to see how an idea, once it gets big, can grow and become your wildest dream."

Since founding CultureCon and TheCCnyc, Ellis has strategically recruited top talent to build her team at all levels of the company. To her advantage, she has a wealth of leadership experience and understands the importance of blind trust - which she attributes to her upbringing as a ballerina and athletic star.

"I did ballet for 14 years. That's when I first saw teamwork in terms of having partners and having people who literally put your life in their hands. You had to trust that the person was going to hold you. And yes, you look beautiful in your tutu, but if you didn't trust the person, the performance was over," Ellis said. Later, she continued to run on the track. "My favorite race was the relay. We did the four by one - and I was always the second leg on the straight. I had to have blind faith for my colleagues," she added.

> There's no way to build trust

Developing discernment to build blind trust as she builds her team and produces CultureCon as a three-city tour and series of events is something that can be attributed to the success of Ellis. Along with his commitment to servant leadership.

"When I...