Join us Tomorrow at the NBMBAA 45th Anniversary Celebration in Chicago

As a valued supporter of the National Black MBA Association’s legacy, we invite you to join us on Friday, June 12 (TOMORROW!), as we celebrate 45 years of creating economic, educational and employment opportunities for Blacks in the business world. Online ticket sales have ended, but visit us at the Hyatt Regency, 151 E. Wacker Dr., tomorrow beginning at 6 p.m. local time and you can purchase tickets on-site. Already have tickets? We look forward to seeing you there.

Visit the 45th Anniversary Page

HONOREES
William C. Brooks, Retired Vice President, General Motors Corporation
Amy Hilliard, President, Fashion Fair Cosmetics
Don Thompson, Retired President and Chief Executive Officer, McDonald's Corporation 

ENTERTAINMENT
Terisa Griffin, as seen on season 3 of "The Voice"    

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LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, recently started asking members in non-English speaking countries if they’d like to take the EF Standard English Test (EFSET) and share their scores on their profiles. The pilot program, which launched this spring, aims to help professionals around the world certify and promote their English language skills. (Harvard Business Review)

You do your best to delegate. Yet into every job, some work housekeeping (answering emails, organizing meeting times, booking conference rooms) must fall. This "administrivia" can eat up vast quantities of time and energy if you’re not careful. Most people want to spend less time and energy on these things, while still getting them done in a timely fashion. So should you do a little bit at a time regularly, to stay on top of it, or save it up and do it all at once? (Fast Company)

Know your stuff, former GE CEO says. Legendary General Electric CEO Jack Welch has taken to LinkedIn to offer a few words of wisdom to those office dwellers looking to get ahead. In short, there are two things that every worker should do to snag that promotion: over deliver, and make your boss smarter. (Fortune)

You probably talk too much. And there is a good reason for that. Science says that humans, being social animals, are programmed to use communication as a vital tool to survive and thrive. This wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that science also tells us that our favorite subject to discuss is ourselves. People spend 60% of their conversations talking about themselves, 80% when chatting on social media. (Fast Company)

What do construction companies, strip clubs, and services like Uber and Lyft have in common? The answer is that they’ve all been sued for trying to skirt the law by treating their workers as contractors instead of employees – a long-standing issue that is being exacerbated by the rise of the so-called sharing economy. (The Atlantic)

At the consultancy where she used to work, Karla Martin, Google’s Director of Global Business Strategy, watched a partner repeatedly offer the lead role on new business to a white male whom she had previously led on a massive cost-reduction project for a multimillion-dollar client. "That partner simply couldn’t remember that it was my leadership, my work – aided of course by the team and that one guy (we’ll call him Jim) – and that I’d been instrumental in hiring Jim and promoting him while I was leading it," she says. (Harvard Business Review)

Greece's international creditors have raised the pressure on the Athens government, as IMF negotiators left talks in Brussels and flew home. Major differences remained and they were "well away from an agreement", IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters. Greece is seeking a cash-for-reform deal, to avoid defaulting on a €1.5bn debt repayment to the IMF. (BBC News)

Renhe Commercial appears to have a well-fortified business model: It builds air raid shelters across China for the government, outfitting them as underground shopping malls for use during peacetime. But even that strategy has not been enough to protect the company from the fallout from China’s property market slump. (The New York Times)

Jobs that require more than a high school degree but less than a degree from a four-year college have historically served "as the springboard into the middle class," according to a report released by Harvard Business School last year. Even better: These so-called "middle skill" jobs are in demand. Yet too few workers, said Harvard, have the right training to get them. (Bloomberg)

Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to the NBMBAA whenever you shop on AmazonSmile. Happy Father's Day!

Register Now for The National Black MBA Association® 37th Annual Conference and Exposition 

Celebrating 45 years of Black professional development and executive leadership, The National Black MBA Association® (NBMBAA®), the nation's premier organization for Black business professionals, today announced early bird registration is open for  the upcoming NBMBAA® 37th Annual Conference and Exposition at the Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL where more than 9,000 attendees are anticipated to convene for networking, leadership development, and career opportunities.

Visit Conference Website
Register Now!

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We know that when we enter code into a computer we get software. And we know that software is part of the fabric of our lives - it switches channels on our cable boxes or spits out money from an ATM. But how does all that actually happen? Bloomberg Businessweek author Paul Ford explains. (Video) (Bloomberg)

Shortly after he announced a $300 million initiative earlier this year to increase workforce diversity at Intel, I approached Intel CEO Brian Krzanich with an idea. What if we applied the same intent and effort to our investment portfolios? What if we took stakes in high-growth companies run by women and underrepresented minorities, whose biggest hurdle wasn’t the quality of their ideas, but the funding to make them scale? (Fast Company)

The FUBU founder shares what he's learned about investing since then. On ABC’s "Shark Tank," Daymond John scrutinizes the business plans of wannabe entrepreneurs, but how does he manage his own finances? A self-made businessman, John is actually pretty realistic – working his way up many ladders and learning from failures. A native of Queens, New York, John founded FUBU at age 23 in 1992, riding the wave of hip-hop fashion trends. (Money)

Five years ago, Kirsten Green had a feeling that change was afoot in the world of digital commerce. At the time, the Internet was rapidly transforming shopping: Amazon and eBay made millions of products available at rock-bottom prices, while beloved brick and mortar stores like Gap and Pottery Barn were swiftly creating an online presence. Yet, Green felt that brands still hadn’t figured out how to surprise and delight customers in the crowded, noisy online marketplace. And she was fixated with trying to find a solution to this problem. (Fast Company)

Ideally, a would-be entrepreneur should save at least a year’s worth of salary before quitting a job to pursue an entrepreneurial venture full-time. It’s the savings part that holds most people back, says Peter Daisyme, co-founder of Hosting Inc. The hosting company, based in Palo Alto, California, specializes in helping businesses with hosting their websites."Fear is the downfall of many businesses before they are actually ever started.

For the Ingram clan, working for the Miami-Dade County transit system has led to regular paychecks, a steady advance up the economic ladder and even romance. By driving buses in Miami’s sun-scraped communities, Richard Ingram and his wife, Susie, were able to join the ranks of the black middle class, moving with their four sons from a rental in the down-and-out neighborhood of Overtown eventually into their own house in central Miami. (The New York Times)

Only 21 percent of millennials, those age 18 to 34, said they would first pick a place to live, and then find a job. The same share of young people said they’d choose a job and move wherever necessary to get paid. When asked about which features of a place make it easiest to live in, most people brought up the bottom line first. About 80 percent of all respondents said the cost of living and affordability of housing mattered most when choosing a place to nest. (Bloomberg)

Have you made any of these money mistakes? We all make mistakes, and through them, we learn. But when it comes to finances, it is best not to take the trial-and-error approach. Avoiding some of the following financial mistakes might save you a great deal of money and heartache. (Money)

Consumers are coming out of their shells and heading to the mall. What will keep shoppers spending for the rest of the year are much healthier labor markets, according to economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. An upbeat consumer outlook was the consensus forecast of 66 economists, not all of whom answered every question. The average forecast sees inflation-adjusted household spending climbing 2.7% this quarter and more than 3% in the third and fourth quarters, much better than the 1.8% gain over the winter. (The Wall Street Journal)

In our world of constant connectivity and blurred responsibilities, the balance between work and life can plague the general workforce. Thankfully, it can also be a primary selling point for savvy and competitive employers. (Inc.)

Some on Wall Street are hanging up on voice mail. Under pressure to cut costs and eliminate waste, large lenders including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. , are either eliminating or considering paring back a service once seen as essential to bank workers as calculators and business cards, said people familiar with the banks. (The Wall Street Journal)

The U.S. economy is more complicated than you think. It’s not surprising that the leaders of the Democratic Party have been making a big deal about rising income and wealth inequality in America, but when Republican Party leaders and presidential hopefuls are using it in their speeches and policy proposals, you know it’s an issue that’s on Americans minds. (Fortune)

Over the years, I've read far more books on leadership than I can count. To be honest, most of these books stick with a tried-and-true formula that doesn't stray too far outside the norm. For example, pick up any book on leadership, and you're sure to read about empowerment and teamwork and inspiring creativity. (Inc.)

The end of capitalism has often been imagined as a crisis of epic proportions. Perhaps a financial crisis will occur that is so vast not even government finances can rescue the system. Maybe the rising anger of exploited individuals will gradually congeal into a political movement, leading to revolution. Might some single ecological disaster bring the system to a halt? Most optimistically, capitalism might be so innovative that it will eventually produce its own superior successor, through technological invention. (The Atlantic)

Against a backdrop of tumultuous economic and demographic change, younger Americans are drawing a new 21st-century road map to success, the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll has found. Across generational lines, Americans continue to prize many of the same traditional milestones of a successful life, including getting married, having children, owning a home, and retiring in their sixties. But while young and old mostly agree on what constitutes the finish line of a fulfilling life, they offer strikingly different paths for reaching it. (The Atlantic)