Our first ever creative and entrepreneur-focused conference is coming to Tempe on Saturday April 23rd from 10:30 am to 5 pm at the Moxy Hotel in Tempe.
Day Schedule:
10:30 am - Doors Open
11:00 am - Keynote
11:30 am - 1:30 pm - Presenter Workshops
1:30 pm - 2 pm - Panel Discussion 1
2:00 pm - 2:30 pm - Break
2:30 pm - 4 pm Workshops Part 2
4:00 pm - 4:30 pm Panel Discussion 2
4:30 pm - 5pm - Final Workshops and Closing
Biography:
Harold Branch III (affectionately known as HB) is the founder of Branching Out Coaching and Training services and has trained domestically and internationally for over twenty years, developing and facilitating an array of personal and professional growth topics for a variety of clients. With an B.S. in Communication, M.S. in Coaching Psychology, and currently pursuing a PhD. in Performance Psychology, HB continues to grow and develop in order to benefit our local and global community.
HB hails from the Westside of Chicago, an area hard pressed and recognized as being one of the toughest and most oppressed neighborhoods in America. Despite being separated from his father when he was one and losing his mother to suicide at the age of two, he defied all odds and went on to become an applauded poet, speaker, and business trainer.
His tumultuous and humble beginnings honed his ability to use captivating poetry and powerful language to engage a crowd with sincerity, truth, wisdom, and action for positive change. HB’s twenty-five plus year career accolades include his life story being featured on multiple media outlets including an MTV Documentary entitled ‘Fight for Your Rights: Warning Signs’. His poetry and stage credentials include touring with global platinum music artists, Woodstock 99, the Winter Olympics, and hundreds of schools and open mics. His youth and community work experience are prolific including the townships and police departments of Durban, South Africa, retreats in Canada, schools, hospitals, youth correctional facilities, universities, spiritual centers & conferences all across the U S. Whether it is one on one sessions or Las Vegas’ MGM Grand with over 12,000 fans, Harold Branch engages, motivates and inspires any group placed in front of him. Even his first book ‘Finding My Way’ uses poetry and coaching techniques to guide readers through their own healing journey and has been used nationwide to future healing and action-based conversation. Not only has he mastered his story, but he possesses the unique ability to empower others to master theirs.
HB is definitely not all talk and no action! His contribution to the community is well documented and recognized in the 2015 edition of ‘The State of Black Arizona’, multiple features at the City of Scottsdale MLK Dinner ceremony, as recipient of Phoenix’s Martin Luther King, Jr ‘Living the Dream’ award, as inaugural recipient of the Universal Learning Centre’s ‘Courage in Learning Award’, and too any awards and recognitions to name them all. Considered a legend in the spoken word world, HB founded and hosted of one of the country’s largest open mic poetry and arts events serving Arizona for over ten years – ‘HomeBase Poetry’. This ASU graduate received a prestigious honor by the Michigan Board of Education who included him in there 2016 list of ‘100 African American Males You Should Know’. His skills took him to Ghana under a month-long Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship as an artistic cultural ambassador. Locally, his dedication to service has him currently serving on the Use of Force and Major Incident review boards for the Scottsdale Police Department. But he is most proud that in 2016 Black Enterprise magazine featured Mr. Branch and his ex-wife, concerning their accomplishments in co-parenting their highly gifted children Harold IV and Ella Leanay.
Whether it is keynote speeches, seminars, or multiple day retreats-from communication, emotional intelligence, social awareness, anger management through poetry, tragedy to triumph, global responsibility, or business performance and reaching productivity goals-Harold Branch III is the real deal!
Booking and rate information: hb@haroldbranch.com
773-386-0319
Stefani Monet is a musician and Breathwork Facilitator
committed to helping artists learn how to do their inner work and take better care of themselves. Her work focuses on targeting nervous system dysregulation and ineffective behaviors, habits and beliefs around human emotion. She believes that artists deserve to not only be creative, but balanced, healed and joy filled.
Bio: Born in Saginaw (pronounced “SAG-IN-AWW”), MI, award-winning writer/spoken word artist Truth B. Told (born Christopher Owens) has wowed audiences from Ford Theater in Hollywood to the Alvin Ailey Theater in Manhattan & Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Truth has been featured on BET's Black History Moment series and Dove/Twitter's #SpeakBeautiful campaign as well as MTV, VH1, and PBS, and has also written a successful pitch for a company that appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank.
Truth also owns and runs Culture PHX, a community-focused company specializing in curating events and initiatives which empower Black and other underserved communities that has garnered national headlines for its work with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and New York Liberty to empower young women.
Bio: Kylelashay Draper is a three-time author, poet, motivational speaker and performing artist. Her gift of performance has allowed her to showcase her talents in front of audiences that were far and beyond anything she could have ever thought or imagined. Her body of work includes speaking engagements on military bases, college campuses, churches, and various other organizations. She has gone viral on the internet more than four times, totaling as high as five million views across the board. In everything Kylelashay does, she incorporates the power of love & the power of truth because she believes that with love & with honesty all things are possible. With that, she has been able to touch the hearts of audiences made up of all genres, ages and ethnicities. She has a message for every ear and for every heart that desires to listen. Her primary mission in life is to change the world one person at a time and to ignite new fire in the hearts of every person she encounters.
Dom Root is a creative artist, music producer, and storyteller from Inglewood, California. He is the co-owner of the I Am Root Brand and in 2014 he completed a B.A in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Arizona State University, with a minor in Philosophy and Ethics. In 2017, he received an A.A from Mesa Community College in Audio Production Technologies.
Root works in the freelance space producing for brands, films, and music artists. He's worked with local bands, churches, and organizations, as a live sound technician. He is a published writer with 10 years of experience performing spoken word. His work can be found online, in blogs, on Amazon, and published in 'Rooted Reflections: A Black Hair Anthology: A Collection of Hair Stories, Trials, and Triumphs.'
Dom Root is also a member of the Artist Investment Program, an invitation-only, pilot cohort program created by the Arizona Commission on the Arts to invest in the artists of Arizona who impact the communities the public agency serves.
Dom Root was in the Tempe Creatives Cohort in 2019-2020, where he produced the 'TheraBeats Project, which featured Music, Poetry, and conversation about self-love.
Bio: Travis White is a philosopher of language, he has a B.S. in Anthropology from the University of Western New Mexico and currently works with the I Am Root Co. art collective. He uses media ecology to approach language asking what are the movements that words cause. Investigating the human experience from an evolutionary perspective he uses the works and lives of Marshall Mcluhan, Alfred Korzybski, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Buckminster Fuller in his attempt to explain what humans are by describing what humans are doing.
Bio: Briana Buckner Brown received herBachelor's degree in Psychology from Arizona State University. Always having a passion for helping people she combined that, with her love of business and launched Briana Buckner Coaching and Credit where she provides business and credit coaching for entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Having multiple successful businesses, a natural hair salon and a peer-to-peer car rental company, gives Briana the expertise needed to help others create thriving, successful and profitable businesses.
Presentation Synopsis:
My topic will be Mindset For Success.
With many distractions in our current world it can be difficult to stay rooted. I will be discussing ways to break bad habits and form good ones, how to create a miracle morning routine to set your day up for sucess and lastly I will be discussing the importance of knowing your WHY.
Presenters:
Harold Branch - [Keynote] "Staying Rooted in the Digital Age"
Briana Brown - Mindset for Success [Entrepreneurship]
Travis White - Tradition and the Mind: Building self through history
Stefani Monet - Yoga Principles and Breathing Exercises
Kylelashay Draper - Stage Presence + Storytelling
Truth B Told - Writing, Performing, and the creative process as a full-time artist.
Dom Root - Getting and Staying Creative
Panelists:
La Monique Wade - Marketing and Social Media Strategy
Gabriel Whitehead - Creative Director + Designer
Darius Mylik - Music Artist / Entrepreneur
Lewis Santana - Music Artist
Chantell Monique - Writer + Educator
Princeton - MMA/Athlete
Jalopy Bungus - Music Artist
No More Excuses Academy (NME) - Fitness + Wellness
Kristi Sprowl - Public Health
Jalopy Bungus is a musician from Phoenix , Arizona . After headlining & selling out multiple venues in his state , Jalopy has already received co-signs from Lyrcial Lemonade, ElevatorMag, TheSource, Tory Lanez, Injury Reserve, IDK & more.
“A soulful and dynamic singer, songwriter & lyricist raised in Minneapolis, MN. Now residing in Phoenix, AZ where he intends to create a dynamic impression on the culture.
Some describe him as a jazzy, hybrid mix between Lauren Hill, Anderson Paak & the late great legendary Prince. A very lofty list to compare to - he also blends in the militant passion of Tupac Shakur as exemplified on his anthem “Killmonger”.
He is the first artist from Genreless: The Collective - an independent label with creative outputs that span from audio, visual works and clothing inspired by the blueprint of “All Money In,” the label that produced by Nipsey Hussle.
He looks to blaze a new trail within the music industry.”
Darius Mylik
I am Chantell Monique a Phoenix based Author and poet. My goal is to create and tell authentic Black stories that all people can relate to and enjoy. I fell in love with literature at a young age. That love ultimately morphed into me wanting to write my own stories. I am above all things a child of God but I am blessed to hold many other titles: wife, mother, educator and feminist. I draw energy and inspiration from those roles to produce my best content. I write pieces about everything from relationships, children's stories to social injustices and more. I am just a young, Black, creator working everyday to take my work to the next level. I believe in what we do, so we must continue to speak volumes, Godspeed.
Bio: The youngest of four, Gabriel is a multi-dimensional creative, entrepreneur, and bridge builder. A pseudo-Phoenix native, he spent the bulk of childhood growing up in DeRidder, Louisiana before his parents moved to a budding Phoenix metro in 2009 at the age of 15.
He got his start as a creative entrepreneur right out of high school creating a clothing brand called Covert Genius where he leveraged his ability to network and blend into multiple environments to gain exposure and start to build an extensive network on campus and throughout the city. Dabbling in the fashion world, he became a model where he had the opportunity to represent brands that have been featured on publications like Hypebeast.com and Highsnobiety.com.
While at ASU, his love for film and video content led him to leave the university to study at Scottsdale Film School. There he learned that he had a knack for production and storytelling. Film school gave him an opportunity to write, direct, and produce. All three became pillars of his creative and business outlook.
After returning to ASU, he got his bachelor's degree in Environmental Design with a minor in Entrepreneurship. There, he found himself studying startups in the Silicon Valley where he participated in a hands-on pilot program that gave him the opportunity to build and pitch businesses in front of venture capital investors. After his experiences and failures there, he saw an opportunity and struck, landing himself in the thick of the tech world in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Now, Gabriel is the founder of Generally---Specific, an independent creative agency focused on creative direction and content production across a variety of verticals including crypto and NFTs. Generally---Specific's flagship project is green-Label Collective, an open-source platform focused on hosting an aggregate of different types of content and documenting processes to provide a clear frame of reference for multi-dimensional creatives with an unconventional mix of skills, experiences, and expertise.
During the day, he works as a digital advertising strategist at Google where he leverages his creative outlook to help SMB companies scale their marketing efforts in the ever-changing digital world.
N.M.E is an acronym for No More Excuses
This company is owned and operated by Alex Sanchez and Grant Simons. (Please find their info attached at the bottom of the interview) These young people have built a team and they are putting in work daily to help their clients reach their goals with No More Excuses.
Bio: La Monique is a digital marketing strategist whose company offers digital marketing, branding, and public relations all of which will help a small business owner to better connect to their audience.
Bio: Born in South Central Los Angeles, raised in the heart of the South Phoenix sun, Lewis Santana (aka Bruce Wave) is a striking lyricist and entrepreneur with a cutting-edge and fearless delivery. Rising up through the Arizona Hip Hop scene, the Southwest MC is a student of the game and a renegade who embodies the message of defying the odds and rising to the occasion.
Bio: Kristi is a vivacious city girl from Inglewood, CA that loves all things health and wellness. She has a passion for communities of color and helping them find their truth in health, relationships and life. Her hobbies include singing, writing and traveling. She seeks to build connections with compassionate people whenever possible and uses her voice and knowledge to focus on people's growth and healing. With her graduate education, she has been able to navigate in a range of public health arenas from the non profit, county, federal and health delivery setting. Using her creative mind, she has assisted in developing multiple projects and curriculums based around healthy living. She loves life and lives it to the fullness of her potential!
Intuitive Readings & Spiritual Life Coaching https://instagram.com/_solovelyreadings?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Links:
This project is partially funded by a City of Tempe - Community Arts Grant (you can link to www.tempe.gov/ArtsGrants)
@TempeCityArts