Titans of Franchising

Antwanye E. Ford

Enlightened, Inc. | www.enlightened.com

Antwanye E. Ford is President & CEO of Enlightened, Inc., a leading Information Technology and Management Consulting firm founded in 1999. Enlightened serves federal, state, and local government agencies, and provides cyber security, software development and integration, management consulting and business process outsourcing services. As co-founder of Enlightened, Antwanye has led the Company’s growth from a start-up business to a diverse organization with over 200 employees. He continually leads the Company’s corporate vision, strategic planning, and innovation efforts.

LOOKING TOWARDS THE FUTURE

As I think about the future, I am full of hope for an unusual reason. I believe for various reasons people have become more honest with each other. People are more honest about what they want and what they are willing to give. As a society, it is accepted that we have become more polar in our views and perspectives on a myriad of topics, however, this is why I am hopeful. Before this wave of polarization, we had to guess about people’s agenda, needs and wants. From a business and personal perspective, once someone validates their agenda and states their objectives, we can have an honest conversation without fishing for the hidden meaning. Yes, there are still hidden agendas, however, we can get further down the problem-solving road, because we all come to the conversation with a map of how we believe the problem should be solved. In the past, people did not openly share their map; now, the map is present and accounted for. The core of this hope is that as we have more honest conversations, we should and must establish that honesty must be maintained throughout the process and all partners must be honest if they are willing to get to a common goal. If not, time, energy, and effort must be re-directed to issues, problems and concerns that are solvable because two people decided to be honest.

As far as my greatest learning experience and a concept that has helped me throughout my life, it comes down to one statement: “do what needs to be done, but what other people are not willing to do”. A Black Executive and mentor, who was a shining star at a Fortune 500 company, told me that this was his method of accelerating his career. It has never failed. Be ready to take the risk.