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Leading the Way: Nurse Entrepreneurs of Color Make Possibility a Reality
Four alumni seized the opportunity to start their own businesses. Now they are helping patients and communities in their own ways.
Cleopatra Kum knew she wanted to establish a business with a familycentered care model that allowed older adults to age in place. But entrepreneurship concepts were not a part of her nursing education.
“It was hard at the beginning because, as you might guess, as a nurse I had close to no entrepreneurial knowledge,” says Kum, a 2021 graduate of UC’s PhD in Nursing program and a UC College of Nursing faculty member.
With help from regional organizations and mentors in the business and nursing fields, along with many hours of business trainings and research,
Kum made it happen. After going through the process, she hopes to bring more awareness to entrepreneurship in nursing and inspire other nurses, especially nurses of color.
For decades, health organizations like the Institute of Medicine and American Nurses Association have called for more support for nurses to lead in creating and adopting innovative care models, health devices, IT products and more. On the frontlines of health care, nurses are poised to recognize these opportunities, yet only 0.5% to 1% of working nurses worldwide are entrepreneurs.
Cleopatra Kum, PhD ’22
Cleopatra Kum’s culture emphasizes caregiving, especially for elderly community members.
Kum, PhD, lived in Cameroon, Africa, until about a decade ago when she emigrated to the U.S. to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. She quickly saw an opportunity, or perhaps a necessity, for a nurse to build a better home health care model for older adults. So, she did.
“I did home health care nursing for other agencies, and I learned the people in charge were businesspeople and not nurses,” she says. “I wanted to create a family-centered model that worked for the good of the patient.”
In 2016, Kum founded Family Support Care LLC, a Medicare-accredited home health agency that provides skilled and non-skilled, in-home nursing care to patients in Southwestern Ohio. The agency now employs 18 health care workers and hopes to expand. Rather than focus on the bottom line only, as she observed while working for other home health care providers, Kum’s agency strikes a balance between profit and people.
Kum and several other UC Nursing alumni and women of color are part of that small group who took a risk to improve access and patient care delivery. Their lived experiences bring an added understanding of the cultural and practical needs of their communities, and they serve as an example and resource for others in the profession who did not previously see themselves reflected in the nursing or health care entrepreneurship fields.
“I recognize that I am one of few people who has ventured into business, and
I recognize my role as a role model for other Black women who want to establish businesses in health care, and I take that really seriously,” Kum says. Get to know Kum, plus three more UC Nursing alumnae — Anyinke Atabong, Randi Horne and Corinn Taylor — and learn why they chose to venture out on their own, how they have achieved success as entrepreneurs and how they are helping their patients and communities thrive.
“Every member of the team understands that what matters is better outcomes for the patient and making sure patients get to the highest level of comfort in their homes,” she says. Along with the typical hurdles to starting a business — securing financing, meeting legal obligations and understanding operational needs — as an immigrant, Kum also had to learn how U.S. systems function and build a personal network from the ground up. But her background is not a barrier. It is blessing, she says.
“It was a blessing because I’m from a culture of caregiving. We take care of our elders. We respect white hair. People age in place. And I brought that perspective to health care.”
Kum, who earned her PhD in 2022 from the University of Cincinnati and now serves as an assistant professor, hopes to build awareness around entrepreneurship in nursing and to health care as a career for immigrants and minorities.
Anyinke Atabong, Post-MSN Certificate ’17
It is perhaps no surprise that Anyinke “Anyi” Atabong started her own clinic focused on mental health and wellness. Early in her career as an emergency department nurse, she felt a pull toward patients with psychiatric needs.
“My colleagues started realizing this and would say, ‘Those are Anyi’s patients,’ and I would say, ‘Yeah, you give them to me. I’ll take care of them.’”
In that same environment, Atabong recognized a need for more specialized mental health care and resources. She went on to earn a Master of Science in Family Nursing and, while providing primary care and occupational health care to patients of all ages, she continued to see mental health challenges.
“That’s when I realized, wow, this mental health thing is really serious,” she says. Atabong went back to school again, this time to UC, to earn a Post-Master’s Certificate in Psych-Mental Health Nursing. Afterward, she worked in community care clinics, including one for medically underserved populations, building her experience in mental health care. Still, starting her own clinic was not in her plan, but a relative with experience opening health care practices floated the idea. Years later, when he approached her again, she took him up on it.
“Having my own practice is actually better for me, because I get to do what I want the way I want and, [it] allows us to focus on each patient as much as needed” she says.
Atabong’s clinic, based in Crofton, Maryland, opened in 2019 and employs two psych-mental health nurse practitioners and a psychotherapist, in addition to several graduate nursing students she precepts. Her clinic offers mental health services, substance abuse disorder treatment and weight loss counseling for patients who gain weight as a side effect of their prescriptions.
She also prescribes medical marijuana for chronic pain management as an alternative to opioids.
As a person of color and the daughter of immigrants — her parents came to the U.S. from Cameroon, Africa — Atabong is familiar with the cultural norms that impact mental health, especially in Black communities. “There’s a lot of stigma, and that’s a barrier that I’m really trying to penetrate and break,” she says.
In the long term, Atabong hopes to return to Africa to work on mental health-related projects. She and her siblings lived there as young adults, completing high school in Cameroon at the insistence of their parents, who wanted them to understand and appreciate their lineage.
“That’s how, he would say, we bring flavor to the world,” she says.
Randi Horne, MSN ’15
Randi Horne has taken every opportunity to further her nursing career, and it has paid dividends. Now, she owns a concierge business, offering facial injectables and skin care in her hometown of Houston, Texas. While working in orthopedic surgery, she took a per diem position in a plastic surgery practice, which piqued her interest in the industry. On her off days, she chose to shadow an aesthetics nurse in the clinic, while also taking care of post-surgery patients in their homes. By the time she began earning her Master of Science in Nursing in adultgerontology primary care at UC during her period as a travel nurse in Florida, she had her mind set. To work toward her career goal, Horne chose to complete clinical hours in dermatology and plastic surgery clinics. After graduation, she began working for a medical spa with locations across the U.S.
“Seeing the growth in demand for aesthetic procedures allowed me to know that transitioning to that area would be a great move. I took every opportunity to deep dive into all the different treatments and mechanisms they had for aesthetic medicine.”
When COVID led to the shutdown of dermatology and plastic surgery offices, Horne leveraged her industry connections and became a dispensing account for Skin Better Science, a L’oréal brand medical-grade cosmeceutical. Once established, she added facial injectable treatments to her services. She offers these services on a concierge basis, meaning by appointment only in a non-traditional clinical setting.
Since 2021, Horne has impacted the aesthetics industry on a broader scale. Again, seizing a career opportunity, she accepted a full-time job as an aesthetic research nurse practitioner at Allergan Aesthetics, where she applies her nursing and aesthetics knowledge to collaborate with engineers, scientists, marketers and commercial staff in the research and development of body contouring treatments.
When Horne entered the field, she did not see herself reflected in the profession, but she did not give it a second thought.
“I didn’t see that as a barrier for me, and now that I’ve been in this field almost 10 years, I’ve seen it grow, especially with trying to provide services for patients of color,” Horne says. “I have so much fun explaining skincare and skin health to people of color, because that’s not something people of color focus on.”
Corinn Taylor, MSN ’01
It took Corinn Taylor decades to realize her own strength and find her purpose.
As one of five children living in poverty in a single-parent household in Toledo, Ohio, Taylor developed an unyielding resilience that she used to defy others’ expectations and earn her diploma in nursing and a UC Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Master of Science in Community Health Nursing. She worked in health care leadership roles and, at the same time, earned an EdD in organizational leadership. During her career journey, she got married and raised three children.
At one point, however, Taylor says she recognized that women tend to put the needs of their families first and often push aside their individual needs and wants.
“I noticed in the conversations I was having that, as women, we were always putting ourselves second,” she says. “It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I figured out who I was and the impact I have, so I’m using my story to inspire others.”
Taylor says she realized she was more than a wife and mother and had everything inside her to achieve her dreams and take care of her family. At 49, she is sharing this story of selfdiscovery and teaching others how to put themselves first. In 2020, Taylor launched Dr. Corinn, a brand that aims to empower and inspire Black women to discover the healing power of selfcare and self-love to be the best version of themselves.
To start, Taylor wrote a book, The Journey of Self-Discovery: Tapping into your Inner Power and Purpose, which teaches readers how to manage stress, be more resilient, have healthier relationships, achieve better health outcomes and make lasting changes in their lives through self-care and self-love strategies. Since then, Taylor has expanded the brand to include a self-guided, six-week journal that focuses on the techniques in her book, as well as workshops, full courses, merchandise and monthly boxes of self-care products.
Taylor also established a nonprofit called The Empowerment Foundation to empower and uplift the Black community by providing resources and support to help individuals become the best version of themselves. Through the foundation, Taylor offers mentorship programming, educational workshops and health and wellness programs. Through her book and programming, Taylor drives the message that, if you believe in yourself, have a growth mindset and stay resilient in the face of adversity, anything is possible. To aspiring Black nurses, she offers, “Believe in yourself that you can do anything you put your mind to. Despite all the things that come to us as Black nurses and Black women, it still can be done.”
