Stocks, Bonds & Cocktails is 21Ninety’s podcast dedicated to providing women with the financial guidance tools they need to excel and grow their wealth. On the final episode of the season, Marsha Barns, our host and founder of The Finance Bar, sits down with Pinky Cole, founder and CEO of Slutty Vegan and Bar Vegan based in Atlanta.
For centuries, the Black community has dealt with a plethora of systemic and racial disparities in our neighborhoods that have further perpetuated our suffering as a people, and as a nation. Barnes sat down with Pinky Cole to unpack this narrative further by discussing how she’s seamlessly helping Black kings and queens to take their power back from limiting societal stereotypes that have continued to undermine Black culture.
Cocktail of the Week
In particular, Black women are not typically viewed by society to live healthier lives, and in this case, Pinky Cole wanted to change that industry by implementing healthier alternatives in the food industry that are giving back to Black neighborhoods in positive ways.
“So I can remember in 2007 when I decided to stop eating meat completely and really just focus on fish, everybody said I was crazy. People said, ‘Girl, what’s wrong with you? You black.’ They didn’t understand, and couldn’t correlate the idea of an African American woman having a healthier lifestyle. Yeah. So I made it cool even if it wasn’t cool,” Cole said to Barnes.
Pinky Cole is not only changing the narrative for Black women to live healthier lives, but is also taking charge of her own career path, where she sets the tone for how much she makes while working a job she genuinely loves. At 14, Cole’s life forever changed when her father was sent to spend life in prison. From there, the 34-year-old entrepreneur set her sights high by dedicating her journey to positive change that involves generational wealth, gathering community and building a lasting empire.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but the day I was born and getting my freedom, my father was being sentenced to life in prison. A lot of my inspiration came from both my mom and my dad, but especially my mother. So when I think about inspiration, I think about working hard and having that upper level of integrity.”
She adds, “I also learned from my father. My father was behind bars, telling me about business, telling me about stocks, telling me what books to read. And because of that, it really gave me that level of inspiration that I can do anything that I put my mind to, that there’s nothing that I cant do — so I used those inspirations to really do all the things I do now.”
In addition to Cole building up the community in positive ways, she touched on the importance of what it means for an entrepreneur to build up their brands by investing in healthy financial habits such as saving, building good credit and investing in your vision. Her vegan empire is how the foodie boss is continuing to push the culture forward by creating a legacy for others to follow. When asked how to structure the core of a business, Pinky Cole disclosed that both of her businesses are based on the core values of impacting the community, a key aspect when creating any thriving business.
“It’s about the ethos of it,” Cole says. “It’s about making sure that you’ve created something that will not just benefit yourself and your pockets, but it benefits the people who are directly affected by what you have to offer.”
By supporting brands that have made it their mission to support us, we can further begin to eliminate limiting systematic systems that have been established to oppress our growth as a community and as a people.
Check out the full episode of Stocks, Bonds & Cocktails below.