The Boss-A-Thon
March 20, 2024 at AKADI from 5-9pm
Creating Tables to Connect and Inspire Action
The Boss-A-Thon
A boss women-led discussion paired with a Chef prix fixe dinner to benefit a social cause. Presented by ALIST and KF Curates.
DATE: March 20, 2024
TIME: 5:00 pm - 9:00 pm
WHERE: AKADI, 1001 SE Division St., Portland, OR 97202
Seating is limited. Open to the public. All are welcome. Program starts at 5:30pm.
Make Women’s History With Us
Local women-owned small businesses, ALIST and KF Curates are partnering to launch the inaugural Boss-A-Thon, a boss women-led discussion paired with a chef prix fixe dinner to benefit a social cause. The evening is designed to connect and inspire action among social cause leaders and PNW change makers and allies. This event is open to the public and all are welcome.
ALIST was established in 2016 to connect BIPOC entrepreneurs to BIPOC professionals. Since 2020, ALIST’s WSW or Women Supporting Women program has connected thousands of small business owners to find the help they need in each other during a historic time of more women registering a business than ever before. Money raised benefits the WSW Community Fund, which helps subsidize the cost of an event ticket while compensating organizers who support the collective women-owned small business community.
Please join us on March 20, 2024 and take a seat at a table with other change makers and allies who are passionate about supporting growth in female entrepreneurship in Oregon. We hope to meet up every year to honor the progress, exchange ideas, and drive action.
Come out for a night of inspiration, engaging conversation, collective fundraising, and an incredible culinary experience. Let’s make history together!
*Tickets are non-refundable. All proceeds go to women business owners. Proceeds are being split with AKADI, the WSW Community Fund, and Boss-A-Thon women organizers.
Event Info
Hosted in the beautiful setting of AKADI, a Black woman-owned, West African restaurant in Portland Oregon, Karen Foster will introduce you to the boss women of the evening. Representing our featured social cause, Amanda Mailey will speak publicly for the first time about how she started the WSW Meet Ups as a mission to save women-owned restaurants from closing in 2022, which then quickly grew into a 400+ entrepreneur support group in the City of Roses.
Executive Chef and Owner Fatou Ouattara will take you through a delicious dinner with wine pairings between interviews and discussions facilitated by Zanele Mutepfa-Rhone, a Zimbabwean-born culture and diversity strategist, speaker, activist and philanthropist. Panelists include Tamara Brown, Vice President, Relationship Banking Officer at Heritage Bank NW and Kaysha Duffy, Director of Impact at OnPoint Community Credit Union.
The Boss-A-Thon is an equity-led fundraising event supporting a social cause
The evening will shine light on
The impact women of color-led businesses have on the economy
Traditional and innovative funding practices available
New systems designed to connect and empower women-identifying leaders
Reframing cause-based investing to include for-profit women-owned companies serving marginalized communities
Women of color entrepreneurs are the fastest growing business owners in the nation despite being the most underfunded, under resourced and underserved. Much of their success comes from working together and engaging a community following. This movement is no different. Help ignite and connect this powerful demographic of women to serve each other by raising money to subsidize cost.
Meet The Boss Women
Amanda Mailey
Amanda Mailey is a 20+ year marketing strategist and leader in both Fortune 500 corporate spaces and among the small business BIPOC Portland community. Amanda identifies as a mixed race Filipina-American and her pronouns are she/her. She’s the sole owner and employee at ALIST, a marketing and business consultancy specializing in serving women of color entrepreneurs. She's also the founder of WSW, a community of women supporting women.
After a 15 year career working for the largest ad agencies in the world advising senior leaders at Nike, Microsoft, Visa, Intel, and Adobe, Amanda founded ALIST in 2016 and has served hundreds of small businesses since its inception. Her work has been recognized by the Portland Business Journal, Koin 6 News, and the Portland Monthly.
Karen Foster
Karen Foster is a Pacific Northwest native of Black and Caribbean heritage, an HBCU graduate, a community connector, experience curator and owner of KF Curates, an event strategy, execution, and consulting agency for in-person and virtual events.
KF Curates works with their clients to produce diverse, inclusive, and equitable events to cultivate meaningful experiences that lead to transformational change, while impacting communities and corporate spaces.
Karen is also the co-founder of The Visionary Squad, a community-based organization that sees the power behind the story of every Black woman and cultivates space for her to be heard through building community and collective healing. She was the Experience Curator behind the 2020 Ain’t Cancelled! series, a webby nominated virtual mental wellness series produced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zanele Mutepfa-Rhone
Zanele Mutepfa-Rhone is Zimbabwean-born culture and diversity strategist, speaker, activist and philanthropist. Inspired by a lineage of Zimbabwean women leaders in her family, Zanele is the founder of Here to Stay - a women’s speaker series celebrating the stories of change-making women in the world.
From working for Anderson Cooper at CNN to building her own diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging consulting collective, Zanele is a recognized thought-leader in her field. Zanele sits on several boards, including Bradley Angle—an organization offering survivors of domestic violence options, support for safety, healing, and hope—and also serves on the Inclusion Board for the global creative hospitality group Soho House.
Currently based in Portland, Oregon, Zanele spends her time developing innovative concepts for her consulting projects, traveling the world to learn about new cultures, providing opportunities for underrepresented talent, and building community.
Fatou Ouattara
Fatou Ouattara is the Executive Chef and owner of AKADI, a West African restaurant in SE Portland, OR. During her upbringing in Bouake, Côte D'Ivoire, Fatou learned the art of African cuisine from her mom, grandma, and aunts. As a teenager, she honed her culinary skills in Bobo Dioulasso and Burkina Faso, mastering clay ovens, wood fires, and traditional spice preparation. Chef Fatou's mission is to authentically represent West African culture through AKADI's food, music, and ambiance, mirroring the gatherings she cherished from her Ivory Coast roots.
Food is her universal language for emotions and connections. In her family, it's the medium through which they express love, sadness, and joy. It's where they cry, dance, and celebrate, sparking their creativity and imagination to create the most delicious dishes you'll ever taste.
Kaysha Duffy
Kaysha Duffy has built a successful career as a financial services professional who is passionate about supporting businesses and community-based organizations. With over 10 years of experience in the banking industry, Kaysha has held roles across various regionally headquartered banks and credit unions. In her current role as the Director of Impact at OnPoint Community Credit Union, she is responsible for leading strategy and execution in four major areas: employee engagement, community partnerships, small business support, and creating accessible pathways into the banking system. Her approach is grounded in the principles of equity and inclusion, ensuring a holistic and inclusive perspective. She currently serves on the Marketing Committee for Taste for Equity, acts as social media co-chair for the University of Oregon Alumni Association Portland chapter, known as the PDX Ducks, and has previously served on the Board of Directors for Xcelerate and as an Outreach Committee Member for the Portland Business Alliance’s Emerging Professionals of Portland.
Tamara Brown
Tamara Brown is the Vice President, Relationship Banking Officer at Heritage Bank NW serving the diverse communities of the Portland Oregon Metro Areas. She has over 25 years of banking experience in commercial real estate and relationship banking. She works with some of the region’s leading nonprofits, commercial businesses, manufacturers, and property management companies, as well as independent and alternative schools. Her area of commercial banking expertise focuses on maximizing cash flow, maximizing return on excess cash and creating efficient information reporting. In her community, Tamara serves on Commercial Real Estate Women’s Future Leaders committee and on the Oregon Bankers Association’s Access and Inclusion and Compliance & Community Roundtables. She also services as a board member for the Black United Fund, All Hands Raised and Portland State University’s Center for Real Estate.
2023 ALIST IMPACT REPORT
Download the latest report from ALIST to learn how one freelance strategist is building a self-sustaining ecosystem for women entrepreneurs. This year’s report includes the latest outlook on women in business and a 3-year case study on how WSW has made a real impact on ALIST, which then ripples out to the local economy.
