Watch: Courtney Whitaker talks Springhill Company
Courtney Whitaker, creative executive at the Springhill Company, discusses her new documentary
CultureCon is all about having a good time and finding your community – the week long event is for everyone! If you’re a creative entrepreneur, in corporate, a student looking for a job, or do a little bit of everything, CultureCon is an unforgettable event that every person of color should experience. Courtney Whitaker talks Black creators with theGrio’s James Gilmore.
“The following is a transcript of that conversation.”
James Gilmore: [00:00:10] All right, everybody, theGrio at CultureCon, we got the Courtney Whittaker, E.P., Executive Black executive out here running shows, how are you doing? [00:00:18][8.6]
Courtney Whitaker: [00:00:18] I’m doing good. How are you? [00:00:20][1.9]
Gilmore: [00:00:21] We’re great. You just got off a good panel. We want to jump in to like you running the show, being an executive, you connected with other Black entrepreneurs here. How does that feel to see so many Black faces like looking up to you and seeing you and happily what you’re doing here? Like, tell us about it. [00:00:37][16.3]
Whitaker: [00:00:37] it feels amazing to be amongst other Black creators. I feel like I am thriving and learning and soaking up. I’m trying to ask all the questions to learn from them as much as they’re learning from me. It feels really good to be able to empower and inspire other young Black creators, other young Black women that want to be producers, to be able to look up to me as I looked up to people like Marlboro Akil and Shonda Rhimes as producers. So it is such a great space to be in and I’m very, very grateful for it. [00:01:02][24.8]
Gilmore: [00:01:03] We’re all about uplifting Black stories and Black faces. What words of advice would you give other people that want to be in your shoes? Little girls that see you and like, Hey, I want to do that one day? What words of advice would you give them if you had a one on one with them? [00:01:13][10.8]
Whitaker: [00:01:14] Well, first I would tell them they need to find three people that they’re looking at to look at their backstory, how they came up, so that you can then figure out what your blueprint could look like. So study someone else’s blueprint to figure out your blueprint and have the flexibility to know that you’re training is going to be very different and stay with it, stay focused and find people that are going to support you through that journey. [00:01:14][0.0]
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