- 2 days ago
The Louisiana Economic Development opens the Global Black Economic Forum stage at the Essence Festival of Culture. We begin where it all starts: with community. This conversation brings together leading voices from Louisiana Economic Development, New Orleans & Company, and the New Orleans Office of Tourism and Culture to reflect on what it means to build, invest, and lead with purpose—especially in a city as culturally rich and resilient as New Orleans.
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00:00i'm excited that we get to open up the global black economic forum stage at essence festival
00:09of culture especially with these ladies and what they mean to this city and what they mean to
00:14economic inclusion and equity in the city of new orleans in louisiana in the state of louisiana so
00:21i want to thank you all for joining me this morning rocky lisa shamelda thank you so much
00:27so we're going to get right into it because for those that may or may not know essence showing up
00:34in new orleans doesn't happen because essence shows up in new orleans it happens through partnerships
00:40and all of the organizations that these ladies lead and are a part of they're considered our
00:48host committee and so basically we all host essence festival together so thank you all first of all
00:54please give them a round of applause
00:56all right so let's kick things off with some love for this city in one word in one word how would
01:05you describe the soul of new orleans during essence festival weekend and why does that matter so much
01:12for economic development i will start with you shamelda okay i don't always follow the rules
01:17so i'll say economic powerhouse oh i like it that's what essence is essence has consistently been
01:25one of the biggest events that comes to louisiana and is the ultimate experience so the state of
01:33louisiana really appreciates this uh not only to the city of new orleans uh economic i'm sorry economy
01:40but for the state as well that's amazing so rocky you know what what how do you describe the soul
01:47of new orleans during essence festival weekend i think it's unfair that you asked us to say it in
01:52one word that's just not fair i mean because okay there's electricity in this building right this is
02:00a magnetic kind of time there's joy yes everything is happening and i will share with you that because
02:09it's so electric every single year the word is out to come to new orleans during july 4th weekend
02:17and what does that mean more and more people during the holiday weekend in the city of new orleans right
02:25we're not only celebrating ourselves but we're celebrating black culture we're celebrating um
02:31our small businesses we're going to the best restaurants there are so many things to identify
02:38here but in one word i guess i'll just say electric i like electric i like the i like the whole
02:44storytelling behind it too because that's rocky that's rocky so lisa i'm going to get it from you
02:48too because i actually you know i want to hear what what word how would you describe the soul of new
02:54orleans during essence festival weekends i believe the soul is enthusiasm okay it's an economic optimism
03:03that takes place people are aware that not only is it going to be a reunion but there's going to be
03:10so much opportunity to support one another to look forward to your creative ideas merchandising them
03:19it is so i believe it's just the enthusiasm that essence brings and they bring it all throughout the
03:25year looking forward to this time as we are here so basically i just want you all to notice everything
03:31started with an e economics electric enthusiasm i like that i think we need to coin that in some
03:38way the three e's just like we launched yesterday the three c's with led okay now i'm going to get
03:44personal right i'm going to get personal because i want to know from each of you what inspires each of
03:50you to do the work that you do in culture tourism hospitality economic development what keeps because
03:57you you all have been doing this for a while right so what keeps you all going what is that thing like
04:03why do you keep doing it and showing up with us and for the city and the state all the time rocky i'll
04:07ask you first um i'm just gonna say that it is all about a deep love and a deep passion and compassion
04:16for the city of new orleans look i've been doing this for 35 years in hospitality i was born and bred
04:24in the city of new orleans and yes barku i am a storyteller and i'm going to tell you why
04:31this city is infectious and once you get to know her you love her and you are attached to her
04:39when you sell and it is in your body to sell it is in your nature to sell you can sell anything
04:45anywhere but i live in new orleans and i love new orleans and it just makes it easy for me to sell it
04:52because i believe in who she is and i believe that every single day she gets better and better and
04:59better and it is because people out here like all of you support us continuously and for that we say
05:06thank you love that lisa what makes you get up and do this every day what makes me get up is and i
05:15will take it from a page of essence i believe that truly as a native new orleanian as well
05:21that we're made like this i like it and i'm made to support our culture and in otcf our motto is
05:30culture is our open door and what pushes me not really pushes me really i'm really running out the
05:36door it needs to catch up with me is the fact that we open the doors to our culture which drives our
05:44economy i believe the culture drives the economy of the city and the state of louisiana and that is
05:51why i do it because i see the opportunity and the economic impact such as 350 million dollars
05:58into our state so that is why i do it that's right you clap for that you can definitely clap for that
06:05i love that and i and i agree i think culture 100 drives the the economy this are who we are right
06:13because culture is rooted in our mission so i i couldn't agree with you more shamelda what is
06:19your motivation to get up and serve every day i love helping people uh if you know me you run into
06:26me i'll ask you a question and whatever i know i want to share it with you so i believe that i was
06:32given this position this role that i'm able to give information to my community to the rural community
06:40to all because i truly believe people perish because of the lack of knowledge so it's my job
06:46to tell you what's available it's my tell it's my job to tell you what resources are available and if
06:53you're not ready it's my job to help you get ready to let you know where you go to get technical
06:58assistance where you go to elevate so i just love helping people um i'm an accountant by trade
07:06but i just love just giving them information and it really helps especially the small businesses
07:14so i'm gonna stay with you and i'm gonna come back over there because i'm gonna touch on the
07:17economic impact that you talked about but i want to talk about when you say helping people because i
07:22think what's really important for everybody to understand is you know we mentioned notcf we talked
07:28about new orleans and co we're talking to led louisiana economic development i think tell us what your
07:34agencies do and why it is important so and and i'm sorry i'm going to add a little bit more
07:40because not only what you do why should people connect with led okay perfect i love that question
07:47so led louisiana economic development is a state agent state agency that's tasked with stimulating
07:54the economy by way of helping businesses large or small creating jobs our focus in helping
08:03small businesses is to provide entrepreneurial support as well as access to capital and technical
08:10assistance all of these things are needed to help a business elevate right and as our businesses
08:18thrives so does our communities so led really invest and wants to see louisiana win so i'm not sure
08:27if you have ever heard but louisiana economic development has received a lot of awards from the
08:33international economic development council and that is because of our agenda our strategy to do so
08:41so we're very unique and we're only moving forward and upward i love that so lisa at nltcf tell us what
08:51nltcf is and and and why people should want to connect with you all nltcf is the new orleans tourism
09:00and economic new orleans tourism and cultural fund excuse me and we're an economic development
09:06corporation we are created newly created we're just five years old and designed to invest in our
09:14cultural economy our cultural artists culture bears cultural businesses and we do that through grant
09:21making partnerships and sponsorships why because we believe when we invest in the creative ideas of our
09:29culture it draws more tourism into our city into our state we are supported through hotel taxes so i want
09:39you to know that we welcome you to our city we always re-welcome you to our city and every stay in our city
09:46goes a portion of it goes directly back into our local cultural economy so it's just really awesome
09:53we are a conduit to make sure that we are fueling what fuels the growth of our city and state that's
10:01that's intentional i love that what a perfect segue into rocky and new orleans and co
10:05new orleans and company is a convention and visitors bureau or dmo a destination management organization
10:13and we are the tourism arm of um new orleans in which we sell and what does that mean so we are
10:20responsible for bringing conventions to new orleans trade shows to new orleans festivals to new orleans
10:27special events to new orleans and how does that affect our economy well it's heads and beds it's people
10:34walking around spending money going to our restaurants staying in our hotels shopping in um our stores
10:42just supportive being supportive of the community and so whether a meeting is small or large it affects
10:49who we are as a destination and new orleans is one of the top five convention cities in the united
10:56states that's amazing give it up for that i also must say miss lisa alexis is actually the first
11:04president of the notcf as it was removed from under the mayor's office is that correct that's you
11:12were the first president it was created through through the mayor cantrell's office and now it's his own
11:17autonomous um organization so congratulations on that um so essence festival brings hundreds of millions
11:25into this region each year how do your agencies notcf new orleans and co led collaborate to ensure those
11:31dollars um reach the communities and the culture bearers we collaborate with new orleans and company
11:40in almost everything we do uh all of our partners many of our partnerships and sponsorships essence
11:47festival of culture is through that collaboration and what i have learned in learning more about led
11:54is that we partner well with led as well because from our film side we work directly with led
12:02and the state on the entertainment side to provide the best tax incentives for filming in the united
12:10states and so we collaborate and all that we do so that the dollars are not redundant but they're
12:17leveraged so that we have a greater impact it makes a lot of sense and hence host committee that's why
12:24we're all sitting up here today so you too um uh rocky tell us about you know how you collaborate to
12:31ensure like what else do you all do because you all do a lot of community we certainly do and i'm just
12:37going to say ditto ditto ditto ditto lisa because it's a unified effort in bringing essence to new
12:43orleans every single year we could not put something like this on without our house committee and that
12:49is um several agencies working together but more importantly we have the leaders of essence that
12:56we work directly with as well being extremely intentional and understanding what their vision is
13:01what their expectations are and how do we meet them right and so um another thing that's very
13:08important is that we invest in our culture bearers and that's more of a lisa thing but it's also a new
13:14orleans thing because when when we invest in our community specifically the people that are our
13:21culture bearers that is what people come into new orleans for who's the best chefs who's the best artist
13:28who's you know it's like everybody wants to see do something in new orleans and it's like a checklist
13:34right there are not many cities that i go to that i look for those particular things but if you think
13:40about artists in new orleans and let's just say entertainers we have so many so many here that when
13:48convention people come into new orleans they're not hiring national talent they're looking into the pool
13:54of local talent to draw from because it's already here and that's what's that's what makes us so proud
14:00to be able to say we're leading the pack when we look at our culture bearers and making a difference
14:06in their lives i love that and it's true i mean you can have 20 events at the same time and there's
14:13enough entertainers in new orleans to actually go and support them the one thing i have to say i also
14:19love about the city is you all support each other absolutely you know every single artist from when
14:24they start to when they expand and when they grow so it's really great to see the second line there's
14:29so much joy and just like excitement when you come into the city um so shamel the economic development
14:36can sound like a buzzword but it's real boots on the ground work yes can you share a recent example
14:43of a project that directly impacted small businesses or creatives in new orleans great question um long
14:52answer uh so it can be considered a buzzword however we leverage different resources one of which is the
15:03state uh small business credit initiative ssbci that created a unique opportunity for the state to
15:11receive up to 113 million dollars and what we did we were very intentional by creating equity and debt
15:21programs and in doing so our debt program we were able to cover over 80 businesses and most of which
15:32were uh setting on businesses which is socially economically disadvantaged individuals who typically have
15:39issues with obtaining uh financing we've partnered with organizations in new orleans such as jedco
15:47um to do our micro loan program as well as new corp what they do their help to go out and
15:54get these loans to the business owners so in short we created programs that are targeted to help
16:02small businesses to help them overcome challenges and we actually if you come to our panel shameless plug
16:11this afternoon you get to see two of our success stories of companies who used our resources and who've been
16:20able to scale to the national level and i'll give a preview one of the young ladies she did a she has a
16:27marketing business and she was able to use her resource network one of which was led but she used all of the
16:36programs and one of her clients is the nfl that's so yes small louisiana business less than 50 employees and most of
16:46our loan transactions a lot of those transactions those business owners have less than 10 employees so we
16:53we're very intentional about creating programs to help the underserved community that's amazing that is absolutely
17:01incredible and we're happy to be partnering with you as well we are because they hold us they they're like our small
17:06businesses our small businesses they don't play about their small businesses um we we have aspiring
17:11entrepreneurs creatives and policy leaders in this room what's your call to action for folks who want to build in this
17:18region whether it's through cultural hospitality or public service rocky i think that sometimes you know
17:25people think that the answer is to leave but i say build in where you're standing right and it doesn't
17:32have to be a skyscraper dream it can be something small that turns into that skyscraper that's very
17:41important to understand but sometimes people don't even understand how to get started and it can start with a
17:47small idea so get a mentor if you don't know find a mentor find people that can provide grants to you
17:56become a member of new orleans and company for any business that you might have what i love at new
18:02orleans and company is that we are a membership driven organization so in order for us to pour into you
18:10we just need you to pour into us a little bit because through that membership what we're going to ensure
18:15is that people see you and the visibility is there well how is the visibility there we have membership
18:22meetings and opportunities monthly we have networking receptions so that it's member to member contact
18:30we have coffee with our president to get to know him to get to know our vice president of membership
18:36to get to know our sales team there are so many different elements in becoming a member of new
18:42orleans and company that can lift you up as an organization and so that small business continuously
18:49grows but you also have to do the work and understanding that that dream can only turn into a reality when you
18:59put in the work makes a lot of sense to me question for you how does one become a member simple phone call
19:08you know if you know me you can say hey i'm interested in becoming a member i'll connect you with our membership
19:13you know the ongoing joke in our office is that we we get these cards if we have a new member
19:19so we get cards to these businesses right and they're like rocky how many how many members have you brought in
19:26well the truth is that i love my city so i'm always going someplace and if it's someplace that's new i'm like
19:32are you a member of new orleans and company so even i may nudge you to become a member because i want
19:38to see you grow as well look this is a competitive market we have over 1300 restaurants in the city of
19:46new orleans and i like to call this a small big town wow imagine the competition out there if you're good
19:52at what you do and you water it it will grow so if i don't nudge you and come in come to us and say
20:01i'm interested and there are very many levels of membership so a small business um can afford it
20:08we we want to ensure that it's affordable for everyone so yeah one phone call so i love that
20:14and so one of the things that that is helpful i think what also comes with membership has its
20:18privileges right absolutely because one of the things that we did on the essence 360 app is create
20:23journeys to allow you to experience new orleans even outside of the essence festival footprint
20:29and new orleans and co was very very helpful in connecting us to their members the restaurants
20:34who's partnering with us to make sure i think there's some discounts but we drive traffic also
20:40because of this partnership it was really easy to get the information um because you already had
20:45these members so membership does have its privileges and i love that lisa how do people connect with you
20:51with notcf um what is the way that they can do that come right to notcf.com and when you go to notcf.com
21:01it will give you all of the varied services that we provide we're more aware in addition to grant
21:08making and partnerships sponsorships we also have an elevation series and picking picking back on what was
21:16said earlier recently what we did is we believe one true point of growth and development here in our
21:24city for our culture is financial we want to offer financial access that gives you financial literacy
21:32that then opens the door to financial opportunities so we partnered with a banking institution with chase
21:40and we had an elevation series to show our businesses artists and anyone who wanted to learn more
21:48um to understand your personal and business banking opportunities so that you would understand where the
21:56access lies through partnerships and entities within the system and within our city that you can scale your
22:03business and grow your business and we're also happy to say that we've done another partnership
22:09with housing you know there's benefits to those who are first responders which we love and need
22:17for housing opportunities and incentives we now in the city of new orleans we have housing opportunities
22:23for cultural artists first time soft second up to 65 000 for persons who are first-time homeowners so
22:32those are just examples of connecting to nltcf.com and then the opportunities that will uh avail themselves
22:41that's incredible that is incredible okay shamelda on to you how does one connect with led so
22:49definitely reach out to us at opportunity louisiana.gov um specifically the innovation capital innovation
22:59programs you can reach out to us when you said boots on the ground i was hoping that somebody from my
23:05office was here so they could hear it we're a small shop but we we're a powerhouse as well we give
23:12hands-on experience one-on-one calls however we can help you we if we're unable to help you then we find the
23:19resource to connect you with so we'll help you to get ready so opportunity louisiana.gov you can look at our
23:27small business programs you can look at our capital programs there's a wealth of resources we said boots
23:34on the ground so we work with other organizations to provide technical assistance to provide help we
23:43have louisiana small business development centers so there's a wealth of information there so visit our
23:48website at opportunity louisiana.gov there's contact information for our program administrators you can reach
23:56out to any of them uh send an email set up a call and we'll sit down and go over those programs with
24:02you and again if you don't fit the programs we offer then we'll definitely shift you and direct you to a
24:09program that can help amen amen and amen okay ladies this was great i really i could go on forever
24:17because you know what i'm constantly learning because my my goal is to make sure like i know we're hosting
24:22together but i want to host more and i want to host bigger and i want to host better and so you know
24:27i want to i want all of us to be held accountable for the amazing experience that essence bring i love
24:33that you tapped into made like this because that is so true you women are amazing partners and through
24:38your organization we thank you all for the partnership that you bring before i let you go
24:44anybody can take this question make it spicy apparently you can make it spicy what is the one myth
24:50about economic development in new orleans that you want to bust wide open right here right now
24:56i'm gonna go first can i just jump right in i think that um for so long people have always considered
25:04new orleans as a party town right and yeah we know how to throw a good party we've got the mardi gras of
25:12the world and all the jazz festivals and of course essence festival of culture but new orleans is also a
25:19business hub and let's be very clear we are open for business we know how to do business we are a
25:26resilient city we've come back from a lot 20 years hurricane katrina this year an anniversary that we
25:35all remember but let me tell you who we are today we are bigger we are better we are proud we love
25:44our city and again we are open for business all right i mean what do you say after that
25:52thank you thank you and thank you go ahead lisa you can i just want to say one other myth is when
25:58people think of economic development many times i believe they think of big business but our city
26:05and state are made up of small businesses so economic development applies to all businesses
26:12the one that is being created right now in your mind so please understand the opportunity is for
26:18you as well i love that i love and quickly i just want to plug that with economic development we are
26:25invested to help position you to win so please always reach out always advocate for your business
26:33because we're here to help economic electric enthusiasm thank you all and essence thank you all so much for
26:44joining us this was amazing we look forward to hosting you again next year lisa rocky
26:51shamelda thank you all for your partnership please enjoy the rest of your day stay safe take pictures tag us
26:59follow and join the app if you haven't essence 360 enjoy the global black economic forum there are some
27:05amazing conversations about to be had on this stage and tons to walk away with stay empowered thank you
27:10thank you and thank you
27:11thank you
27:28you
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