We were lucky to catch up with Cherice Jenelle Williams recently and have shared our conversation below.

Cherice Jenelle, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

As a multi-disciplinary marketer, I’ve spent 15+ years of my career building iconic household brands. Whether it’s the personal hygiene products you’re daily using, to the food and beverages on your table on a Friday night, to the sporting and entertainment events you attend with friends over the weekend – I did that. I served up experiences that enabled powerful moments and memories in diverse consumer lives.

What I didn’t realize at the time, was that I was also building another powerful brand – my own. As my career moved across brands, companies, and states, I’ve transformed business, and also the people I touched. While I personally didn’t have a blueprint that guided my career, by documenting my journey via social media, I have inspired many aspirational marketers, entrepreneurs, and multicultural women that they too can build a purpose-driven life – where their expertise and passions collide.

Through countless ad-hoc requests to consult on small-businesses of my network, lend thought-leadership to summits, and serve on non-profit boards, the Cherice Jenelle, LLC business was born. Cherice Jenelle, LLC is my personal and witty outlet to service and impact broader communities seeking fresh (and often creatively disruptive) thinking across brand-building topics like: marketing, cultural relevancy, DEI and entrepreneurship. I bridge the case studies and experiences of my past to provide practical guidance on how we transform our businesses to support this ever-evolving economy.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m an ambitious and fearless girl from Detroit, Michigan, who always had a vision for global impact, and a work-ethic to match. As I navigated a marketing career across Fortune 500 business in cities like Miami, Cincinnati, Minneapolis and now Dallas, I constantly seeked out environments where I could live authentically me – business oriented, purpose-driven, with a healthy appetite to enjoy life while doing so. This has landed me professionally in the spirits industry, where over the past 5 years I’ve built iconic brands that allow consumers to treat themselves with amazing cocktails and experiences.

The breadth of my professional background encompasses not just spirits, but sports, food service, retail, and personal care products. These experiences power the transformational thought-leadership that Cherice Jenelle, LLC provides as many of these business categories blur the lines post-pandemic. As I’ve spent half my career studying consumer behavior, I’ve developed a knack for empathy, and intimacy with data, to understand values and consumption patterns across diverse cultures. I help businesses connect their core values with what really matters to consumers, driving engagement and ultimately loyalty that leads to profit.

Cherice Jenelle is thus a multi-dimensional consultancy with a range of impactful solutions that continue to evolve with demand:

– Speaking Engagements that cover brand-building and revenue-impact topics like marketing, cultural relevance, DEI and innovation

– 1:1 Coaching & Workshops that empower women entrepreneurs to propel their purpose into powerful brands and businesses

– Board Advisorship for corporations and nonprofits seeking to drive greater impact within Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

– Marketing & Strategy Workbooks & Tools offered through new Etsy shop, ShopChericeJenelle, to empower small business owners globally on scaling their business

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Like many people that go through higher education, I had perhaps a naive thought that the education provided would land me directly in the arms of a loving employer who was going to instinctively value my passion and experiences. Nope. In fact, I graduated with my MBA (Masters in Marketing and General Management) from University of Miami smack dab in the middle of the Great Recession with no job and a crap ton of student loans.

From that harsh reality in 2008, I was humbled yet determined to not let this denial be my destiny. Looking back at the past 15 years, sure I’ve accumulated amazing, award-winning experiences that make me the bold marketer I am today. But beneath the resume, is someone who sat in tons of debt, who had many doors slammed in my face because I was seemingly not a “good fit”, I’ve been laid off on maternity leave, I’ve faced imposter syndrome in comparing myself to my classmates who landed jobs back in 2008, and I’ve endured discrimination in the workplace that eventually had to be settled legally.

My journey to ascend to the ranks of corporate America have not been unscathed, but with the birth of two daughters / girl bosses, a fire has been lit under me to continue to operate with integrity and a vision for a better world for them. My business, Cherice Jenelle LLC, provides forums for me to enlighten and empower more people, while also leaving a purpose-led legacy for my daughters to model within their respective lives.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Whether you’re a huge corporate brand, or a personal brand, the rules of engagement on social media are really quite the same. It comes down to authenticity, which allows you to connect with audiences that matter.

Despite knowing this, growing my audience on social media has certainly made me have doubts. We get caught up in the numbers game, but if your brand is truly standing for something (values-based) – the right people will find, engage and share you with their like-minded friends and family.

Currently the Cherice Jenelle brand is focused on being authentically me: witty, multi-faceted, introspective, professional and fun. If you choose to follow me on IG @ChericeJenelle, you’ll get a sense of who I am and how I show up – and this enables trust with the right people who may want to invite me into their business growth conversations.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chericejenelle.com
• Instagram: @chericejenelle
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chericejwilliams

Image Credits
Bri Crow Creative, Bret Redman, Brand Innovators, Cosign Magazine