Black Women in Business Day 2026: The Future Is Ours
Black Women in Business Day, established by The Hidden 10 and observed annually on February 9, recognises the leadership, economic contribution, and long-term impact of Black women in business globally. It is both a celebration and a reflection. It acknowledges the scale, innovation, and influence Black women continue to build across industries and borders.
The 2026 theme, The Future Is Ours, invited individuals to reflect on a defining question:
How are you building, leading, or shaping the future, and which Black women are inspiring you along the way?
This year’s responses reveal a consistent pattern. Black women are building with intention. They are strengthening systems, entering male-dominated industries, formalising operations, mentoring the next generation, and expanding their influence across sectors.
Voices Reflecting on The Future Is Ours
We invited individuals to reflect on how they are building, leading, and shaping the future.
These are selected responses.
Founder Spotlight: Monica Dube-Sekhwela
Monica Dube-Sekhwela, Founder of The Social Connect, is a strategic marketing and business growth consultant working with early and growth-stage founders, particularly women-led and African organisations.
Through her proprietary GLIDE Framework, she helps founders move beyond fragmented tactics into structured, scalable execution. Her work spans agriculture, agritech, edtech, skincare, fashion, hospitality, professional services, and more.
For Monica, shaping the future means preparation. It means equipping women to build businesses that generate both wealth and autonomy. Her focus is clear: sustainable systems over short-term visibility.
Her journey began with a desire for freedom - flexibility, mobility, and the ability to support others in building their own ventures. A pivotal moment came when she secured a grant following her Executive Master’s in Entrepreneurship, enabling her to formalise and expand her operations.
Her advice to Black African women founders is direct:
Invest in personal development and mindset mastery.
Negotiate clearly and set boundaries.
Put agreements in writing.
Collaborate rather than compete.
She emphasises that business growth mirrors personal growth. As she notes, “Your business doesn’t grow unless you do.”
Founder Spotlight: Tuduetso Mokoena
Tuduetso “TAG” Mokoena, Founder and CEO of Kitso Ya Tsetsanyana, leads an environmental health consultancy in South Africa providing regulatory, sustainability, and public health advisory services.
Her journey began during unemployment. Rather than waiting for opportunity, she wrote directly to the National Department of Health to advocate for her profession and her value. Within a month, she was working.
Her leadership is rooted in advocacy and radical candor (i.e. honesty delivered with care). Inspired by thinkers such as Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and Bell Hooks, she leads with conviction, empathy, and boundaries.
A major lesson from her journey has been resilience under constraint. Working with limited resources tested her belief in her own value. She learned to adjust strategy without abandoning identity.
Her advice is clear:
Do not carry the world alone.
Remove the saviour complex.
Advocate boldly.
Lead with honesty and care.
For Tuduetso, shaping the future means refusing to remain silent when expertise can serve the community.
Looking Ahead: Building Rooms That Match the Ambition
Black Women in Business Day is not only about recognition. It is also about readiness.
Across Africa and the diaspora, Black women founders are thinking long-term. They are formalising systems, strengthening governance, improving operational clarity, and preparing for scale.
Sustaining that trajectory requires the right rooms.
The Hidden 10 advances Black and African women-led businesses through structured, peer-driven growth environments. At the centre of this is The Roundtable - a confidential, moderated space where real business challenges are examined with clarity and strategic focus.
Within each session, founders bring active decisions: whether to scale, restructure, hire, expand, reposition, or conserve capital. The discussion moves beyond surface advice toward defined next steps and accountable execution.
The value is the quality of founders in the room, the depth of conversation, and the strategic clarity that follows.
Because the future is not built alone.
It is built in rooms where ambition is matched with discipline, where collaboration replaces competition, and where Black women founders are positioned not only to survive, but to lead.
The Future Is Ours.
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