MEET MICHAEL MOORE

TALENT

VALUING BLACK ACHIEVERS

Michael Moore’s bold plan is to help Black professionals feel like they belong. –BILL THOMPSON M

ichael Moore is both an idea guy and a doer, a combination that’s served him well as the founder of Black Achievers. The West Side native launched the organization in 2018 to connect African-American professionals who might not feel like they belong in Cincinnati, either at the offi ce or away from it.

“I saw a disconnect among Black professionals who didn’t have connections, social capital, or a network,” Moore says. “Essentially, what you had was people in isolation trying to get through their day but not connecting around their career or their entrepreneurship. More than 400 people showed up at our fi rst event. Everyone was seeking community.”

Black Achievers took a big step throughout the past year of the pandemic and civil unrest. “I think the tipping point was the death of George Floyd,” Moore says. “It was tragic, but companies stepped up to support what Black Achievers is doing both fi nancially and by opening avenues. We all want to live in a society where people feel valued, and I think companies are getting behind that concept.”

Moore credits Mary Stagaman, who was vice president for inclusion at the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, for introducing him to many of those local companies. Now running her own consulting business and serving as ArtsWave’s Impact Executive-in-Residence, Stagaman believes Moore has the combination of skills and personal charisma to create real change. “We have needed a full-on eff ort targeting Black talent to get to the idea of ‘belonging’ in the workplace and in the community,” she says. “When I heard Michael’s business plan for Black Achievers, I was dumbfounded. He’s done exactly what we have needed to do for so long.”

Moore seems uniquely qualifi ed for the task. He attended St. Lawrence elementary school, Elder High School, and the University of Cincinnati, where he started Websites Express, a company that developed and built sites as businesses were just learning the value of the internet. He later sold the company and has worked at Fifth Th ird Bank since 2016 as an IT Project Manager. He published a book in 2018, Achieve Your Dreams: 9 Principles of African American Success.

“Th e fi rst three or four chapters were about my childhood, being an African American growing up basically in a white environment, dealing with racism, how that aff ected me and how I had to overcome it,” Moore says. “My best friends from fi rst grade are still my best friends now. A lot of them are white, and I navigated that well, which is why I believe race relations can get better.”

In other words, as Moore told the Cincinnati Business Courier last year, “Everyone is talking about systemic racism. [Black Achievers is] a systemic solution.”