NAIMA MCQUEEN

TRAINING & EDUCATION DIRECTOR

Naima McQueen (She/Her) is a weaver of stories and experiences, convener, and strategist. She is a lover of people and systems AND people as systems and is driven by the passion, ideas and joy of others and the process of bringing those to actualization.

The daughter and descendant of entrepreneurs, and child of Bed-Stuy, Naima is deeply committed to the legacy of small businesses as cultural havens, community convening spaces and sources of deep human connection; and passionate about their ability to thrive in each iteration of their existence. Specifically, Naima works at the intersection of Black liberation, economic self-determination and financial activism. 

As cross-sector management, strategy and convening professional, Naima has spent her career supporting individuals and organizations actualize their visions and goals through co-creation of strategy, implementation, and knowledge-sharing and facilitation, to meet abundant opportunities as they reveal themselves across youth work, leadership development, microfinance, business education and small business support. Naima grounds her work in creating connections, synthesizing information, sharing tools, adding needed capacity through a lens of radical visioning of what’s possible. Her work has intersected with, and been represented through, community event production, experiential workshop design and facilitation; business education; and nonprofit executive leadership.

Naima holds a B.A. in Psychology and African American studies from Mount Holyoke College and an M.B.A from the Lorry I. Lokey School of Business and Public Policy at Mills College. She is also a proud alumna of the Coro New York Fellows Program in Public Affairs, Coro Northern California Adaptive Leadership program, Coro Northern California Women’s Leadership Program, and the New York StartingBloc Institute.

If you’re looking for Naima, she’s likely in a comfy corner somewhere with a sci-fi fantasy book, cooking for friends and family, or playing with her niblings somewhere on the west or east coasts.