Unless the year end is your industry’s crunch period, that means the next few weeks are a great time to clear up some back-burner tasks. Whether you’re an employee, a jobseeker, or a solopreneur, here’s how to get a jumpstart on whipping your email inbox and social media accounts into gear for the year ahead. (Fast Company)

Fortune features 20 star executives who are working hard to define the future of business. And what you'll find is that many of them have in common traits that lead to success. (Fortune)

What does loving your job mean? What's most important on a job? What do you find rewarding? How do you stay passionate about the work? Conversations with senior level executives reveal common themes that we all can use. (Harvard Business Review)

Jamie-Clare Flaherty, Director of Strategic Initaitives for the Obama Foundation, Tracey Patterson, a Senior Manager at Accenture, and Bärí Williams, the head of business operations for StubHub North America, discussed the challenges they have faced in their careers on a panel titled "The Black Ceiling" at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit earlier this week in Laguna Niguel, Calif. (Fortune)

Ilana Gershon, a former Indiana University anthropology professor has written a book on the ways job hunters search for work and her conclusions are important to understand for anyone looking for a job, and especially for people in their 50s and 60s who haven’t searched for a job in decades but suddenly are. (Forbes)

Women now represent 27.3 percent of Microsoft’s employee base, according to new numbers released this week by Kathleen Hogan, the company’s chief people officer. That number is up from 25.8 percent last year, but a substantial portion of that increase is due to the inclusion of LinkedIn’s workforce following Microsoft’s acquisition of the business social network. (GeekWire)

Financial services firm Edward Jones this week announced the launch of a firm-wide initiative to attract, develop and retain diverse financial advisors. The program, called BRIDGE, is part of Edward Jones' push to become a more diverse and inclusive firm and provides mentorship and coaching opportunities for both new and veteran financial advisors within the firm to augment their professional careers. (PR Newswire)

Only 6.4 percent of the chief executives of Fortun 500 companies are women, and only two are minorities: one Asian and one Hispanic. Of the four black chief executives, all are men. (The New York Times)

Zimbabwe was once the bread basket of Africa. But it's been slammed by industrial mismanagement, food shortages, a collapsed currency and rampant corruption. (CNN Money)

Canadian officials filed a motion this week that will create a panel of judges to resolve a bitter dispute between Canadian and American lumber companies. (CNN Money)

New data suggests that 70 percent of student-parents who defaulted on student loans were single. For African Americans, single parents made up 90 percent of student-parent defaulters. As a result, 1-in-10 undergraduate borrowers was a single parent, but these students represented 2 out of every 5 undergraduate defaulters. For these borrowers, who are often the sole providers for the family, default can keep them entrenched in their current financial situations, making it all the more difficult to improve their circumstances. (Center for American Progress)

La Salle University’s School of Business is one of 11 universities nationwide to join the National Black MBA Association^® Collegiate Partnership Program. Officially launched in April 2017, NBMBAA^® announced their first installment of partners last month at the 2017 Annual Conference and Exposition in Philadelphia. (LaSalle News)

The "Diversity: In Red, White And Black" series will consist of conversations with business leaders and social influencers representing various industries, segments and sectors who are inspired by and committed to sharing information and thoughts on the subject of diversity and inclusion. Each article is designed to engage and encourage respectful conversation around the topic of workplace diversity. (Forbes)

Nomad Health co-founder and CEO Dr. Alexi Nazem says he wants to bring the gig economy to health care. His company is trying to accomplish that by allowing doctors and nurses (in certain regions) to team up with hospitals that need medical professionals on a short-term, freelance basis. And now, Nomad is taking the digital health-gig economy hybrid philosophy a step further by expanding into the world of telemedicine and virtual doctor visits. (Fortune)

Apple's latest diversity report highlights a continuing tech industry problem: Despite funnelling millions of dollars into diversity initiatives, tech still employs a larger share of whites, Asian Americans, and men, compared to the overall private industry, and a smaller share of African Americans, hispanics, and women, according to data from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (TechRepublic)

Changes are coming for Amazon and its customers. As of Jan. 1, Amazon will college sales tax from merchants who ship orders in its home state of Washington, and states such as South Carolina are fighting to force Amazon to college tax on its marketplace sales. (The New York Times)

As more scientists and engineers launch their own tech startups, does business education still count? (Business Because)

Former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, encouraged a group of Southern black business leaders last week to demand better. Bannon made the comments while speaking at a private round-table event in Charleston, South Carolina, which was sponsored by the South Carolina African American Chamber of Commerce, a group that strives to empower black entrepreneurs.(Black Enterprise)

More than half of Americans have not gotten a salary increase over the past 12 months, a new survey finds, despite a tight labor market that’s making it harder for employers to find workers. (USA TODAY)

The optimal time to buy tickets depends on where and when you plan to travel. Plane ticket costs fluctuate constantly. During a typical 11-month period a flight is listed, the price changes every four and a half days on average, according to CheapAir.com’s annual airfare study. (USA TODAY)

In evaluating the corporate governance landscape this year, BE found that roughly 40% of the nation’s largest corporations across a myriad of industries – from tech giants to discount retailers – do not have a single African American corporate director. (Black Enterprise)

The retailers left standing are those that figure out how to treat disruption as business-as-usual in an industry accustomed to slow, strategic planning. Today, even long-established retailers are starting to set and deliver on selling strategies at the nearly real-time pace set by their online competitors. (Harvard Business Review)

Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who have become famous for their staunch support of conservative candidates and causes, are reportedly backing a deal that would allow Time Inc. to be sold to the Meredith Coporation. (The New York Times)

The Trump administration is taking a hard-line stance over a new North American Free Trade agreement, a position that could lead to the demise of efforts to find common ground between other countries and the U.S. (The Washington Post)