An ordinary beginning. An extraordinary life’s work.

My father said it so often about our close-knit Black community that it became the drumbeat of my childhood, against the joyful backdrop of New Orleans. My grandfather, a church deacon, walked 20 miles a week collecting insurance payments so my mother could go to a good school. Both my parents were college graduates who believed education opened any door.

My father was chosen to lead USAID work in Africa, taking us to Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. Going to British schools with other diplomats’ children, often the only Black child in class, I was singled out as unprepared. I felt excluded and ashamed.

Outside school, I saw Africans work hard for little. Those years taught me to be grateful, work harder, and lift others up. My father showed me how, treating household staff and senior colleagues with the same kindness and respect.

I always considered myself an average person. At Fisk University, I wasn’t the best student, but I had a gift for people and discovered a knack for sales.

As a senior, I landed a sales job with Xerox. Then I met Jim Griffin, a Wharton recruiter. Through long conversations and lots of laughter, he urged me to aim higher. I turned down Xerox and applied to graduate school.

When Wharton accepted me but without a scholarship, I marched into Howard University’s Business School and convinced Dr. Abner that he needed me in his MBA class. I left with a full scholarship and a lifelong conviction.

Jim became my husband, friend, and business partner. By the 1990s, he ran the nation’s largest African-American-owned mortgage servicing company, while I led a marketing firm connecting lenders with the Black community.

At an industry dinner, someone suggested that families of color simply weren’t interested in owning homes. We knew better. That conversation lit the fire that became HomeFree-USA.

Despite Jim’s network of lending partners, we met nothing but closed doors at first. Many hearts and minds needed changing in the industry, as that fateful dinner comment showed.

I learned that it takes time to cultivate the trust and shared vision needed to foster the fruitful, long-term relationships that became key to our success.

The partnership that matters most, though, is the one at home. With Jim, our parents, and a village of support, I built a business while raising four children.