Inspirational Black Men and Women of The C-Suite: Shawna Young of Camelback Ventures On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A C-Suite Executive
Yourself is enough. I spent a lot of my career trying to be other people, changing myself to fit someone else’s view of an engineer, an educator, a leader. But I finally truly started thriving when I showed up as myself and found professional spaces that accept all parts of the real me.
I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Shawna Young.
Shawna Young is a social impact entrepreneur, educator, and speaker who has dedicated her career to empowering individuals and driving social change. She is the CEO of Camelback Ventures, an organization that increases access to opportunity for entrepreneurs of color and women by investing in their ventures and leadership while advocating for fairness in their funding. Before joining Camelback Ventures, Shawna was interim CEO of Ada Developers Academy, a nonprofit that has trained over 1,000 women and gender expansive people of color as software developers. She was also the executive director of the Scratch Foundation, Duke Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP), and MIT Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES). She began her career as a science educator in North Carolina and managed diversity programs at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
With a background in championing access to opportunity for communities that have been traditionally marginalized and undervalued, Shawna is an influential voice in equity, social justice, and education. As a visionary leader, Shawna has spent nearly 25 years nurturing talent and shaping the futures of thousands of aspiring changemakers. She received her BS in Chemistry from Howard University, MAT in Science Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Certificate in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from Boston University.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I have always had a deep, personal passion for championing entrepreneurs of color and women. Growing up in North Carolina, I watched my parents, who have been Black small business owners since the 1980s, struggle to secure the bank loan they needed despite their business’s growth. Their determination and resilience built a community-centered gymnastics business, yet the lack of significant funding remained a barrier.
I carried that feeling with me as I became a science educator in North Carolina and saw firsthand the impact of educational disparities. Since those moments 25 years ago, I’ve advocated for educational equity and nurtured aspiring changemakers through roles at Ada Developers Academy, the Scratch Foundation, Duke TIP, and the MITES Program, among others.
In 2020, I co-founded the Onyx Black Wealth Collective, helping over 750 people build wealth through community discussions on financial planning, home ownership, and investments. Additionally, I co-founded the Black STEM leadership collective called Black Future Innovators (BFI) and Mo-saiq, a career accelerator in STEM and entrepreneurship for young people from diverse communities.
I’m bringing all that experience to my work at Camelback Ventures, to ensure undervalued entrepreneurs get the same opportunity, support, and funding as those from other backgrounds.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
For sure starting my career as a science teacher was the most interesting, because it informs so much of how I show up today. Becoming a teacher was my conscious decision to give back to my community. I followed my passion into the classroom because I wanted to make a difference. But once there, I realized I was building the fundamental skills needed to become a social entrepreneur.
In the classroom, I created something new with my students every day. Especially as a science teacher, there were many opportunities to be innovative. I might reinvent how we conduct a lab, take a project-based learning approach, or even take an everyday concept from my students’ lives and turn it into a lesson in chemistry. Teachers are continuously identifying a challenge and then coming up with a solution, just like entrepreneurs.
What’s special about the classroom though is the goal is to achieve something good. When I saw the light bulb click in my students, it was a powerful moment that has stayed with me. I still think of that today in our work at Camelback because we scale what we believe are models of innovation for those who are closest to the communities they serve and ensure they have the foundational resources they need to make a difference.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I was Executive Director of Duke TIP, I was preparing to go on stage at the university to share some inspirational words with high school students starting one of our on-campus programs. However, I was so focused on what I wanted to say to the 400–500 students gathered that I missed a step going up the stairs and completely fell down walking onto the stage in front of the entire group! That was definitely funny and embarrassing. I quickly recovered and shared my thoughts after much laughter took place. From the experience, I learned that as a leader, even if you are planning for the future, you need to stay aware of what is directly in front of you, because those are the immediate trip hazards.
Can you share three reasons with our readers about why it’s really important for a business to have a diverse executive team?
- Diverse executive teams are powerful. Even if an organization has a leader who is a person of color, it needs a leadership team who has the shared values and lived experiences of the communities they serve because they are closest to the work and decision making. Usually, the CEO is not making day-to-day decisions that impact the operations of the organization. I learned pretty quickly as a Black leader that without a team of people with diverse life experiences, I was influencing but not deeply changing the culture and strategic direction of the organizations I led.
- Diverse Teams Create More Effective Solutions and Products. Without a team of people with diverse lived experiences, you are likely developing a flawed business model based on incorrect perceptions of communities. Particularly if you are in the social impact world, you could be creating models built on saviorism, rather than effective solutions built with the people you are serving in mind. For other businesses you may be making misinformed decisions about features, go to market strategies, or market opportunities.
- Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. Developing a diverse executive team fights back against the historical and systemic barriers that continue to marginalize communities, making it harder for some people to be seen, mentored, and treated as leaders.
More broadly can you describe how this can have an effect on our culture?
Distributing opportunity as equally as talent will never come from just one action. Businesses and executives need to recognize the role we play in lifting people up and holding people back. Then we need to go further. The Camelback Ventures Fellowship was created to provide undervalued entrepreneurs the guidance, resources, and connections they need to make their businesses thrive. But we soon realized that without an equitable funding system, entrepreneurs could only go so far, even with additional support. So we found ways through Capital Collaborative and Guardian Summit to begin to dismantle the existing funding system and rebuild a new one. That’s the kind of domino effect building diverse and equitable teams can have. Leaders will start to see that this one step empowers them to make even greater changes.
Can you recommend three things the community/society/the industry can do to help address the root of the diversity issues in executive leadership?
- Have an asset mindset. It’s time to redefine what leadership is and who is seen as a leader. We have to get rid of bias on all levels, including a monolithic definition of leadership. Once we recognize the individual strengths of people, we can start to build more equitable paths for everyone.
- Share social capital. People need support, more than programs or mentorship. While guiding people with advice is important, it falls short without introductions or connections.
- Give everyone the privilege to fail. People who have been undervalued have fewer opportunities to take risks. Their failures are often judged more harshly than people with more privilege. Growth comes from trying and failing, so we need to create space for everyone to experience failure and learn from it.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
I center gratitude and service in all my forms of leadership. I want to know from my team what they need from me and how I can support them, rather than the other way around. When I do have a goal that I’m leading people towards, I make sure to look behind me and beside me to ensure my team still understands not only where we’re going but why we’re headed there.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why?
- Yourself is enough. I spent a lot of my career trying to be other people, changing myself to fit someone else’s view of an engineer, an educator, a leader. But I finally truly started thriving when I showed up as myself and found professional spaces that accept all parts of the real me.
- Seek environments built in trust. A culture of trust nurtures people’s best qualities and gives them the space to take risks that let them go further.
- It’s ok to rest. I have to remind myself, that life is a marathon, not a sprint. Particularly when it comes to social justice work and innovation, the work is only possible if we rest. It’s even more important for an executive to take breaks. I’ve learned that if I’m not taking care of myself, I’m not taking care of my team.
- You don’t have to be a doctor. When I was younger I thought I wanted to be a doctor because I had a limited sense of what I could be. As I got older I was introduced to new career paths and ideas, which helped me understand my possibilities. The more we can increase representation in all careers, the more choices young people will have.
- Be where your feet are. Our Camelback Founder, Aaron Walker, often uses this saying, which means to be present in the work and people you are with when you are with them.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
At Camelback Ventures we are leading a social movement to increase access to opportunity for entrepreneurs of color and women by investing in their ventures and leadership while advocating for fairness in their funding. It takes everyone to reach that mission — entrepreneurs, investors, established business leaders, and policymakers. We invite anyone who wants to join us to do so by learning more at camelbackventures.org.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Talent is Equally Distributed, but Opportunity is Not. This quote drives my internal motivation, personal values, and chosen work every day. Being raised in a military town in the South and then going to college in Washington, DC and spending the majority of my adult life in Durham (North Carolina) and Boston, I have seen large disparities in opportunities and access, particularly for communities of color. Growing up there was so much I did not know about life, careers, and available opportunities. Now, I have dedicated my career to helping others build the knowledge, skills, and social capital, I wish I had earlier in my career.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Without hesitation, Michelle Obama. Her journey from Chicago’s South Side to the White House as a mom, daughter, sister, and partner to Barack Obama is truly inspiring. Breakfast with her would be an opportunity to connect on shared experiences of breaking barriers, balancing career and family, and driving social change. I would love to learn more about her funniest, most rewarding, and hardest moments before, during, and after her time as our First Lady. Her wisdom on navigating high-profile leadership roles while staying true to her roots would be invaluable as I continue my journey as a leader.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Learn more about our work at Camelback Ventures by visiting our website: www.camelbackventures.org and follow us on your favorite social media platform: @camelbackventures
I’d also love to connect with our social impact leaders. You can find me at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/youngshawna/
Instagram: @shawnayoung.fwd
This was very meaningful, thank you so much!
Inspirational Black Men and Women of The C-Suite: Shawna Young of Camelback Ventures On The Five… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.