Cynthia Bailey Joins Seagram’s to Empower Women in Business

With her many business ventures and television role on Bravo’s Real Housewives of Atlanta, Cynthia Bailey has partnered with Seagram’s to share her background and experiences with other women on a nationwide empowerment tour.

The traveling event, called the Seagram’s Escape Empowerment Tour, stopped by Atlanta’s Georgia State University Ballroom on Nov. 12, 2019, where Bailey asked questions of panel guests: Shaquita Smith, actress, director, producer; Chay Rodriguez, entrepreneur and podcaster; Jeannine K. Brown, speaker, author executive coach; and Jazmine Duke, entrepreneur and author.

Cynthia Bailey

Bailey is an active force in women’s empowerment for business and asked that the panelists to share their outlook and obstacles as successful business women.

Jazmine Duke

“I had this vision and it was my passion and I was waking up every morning like burning to do it and fighting to get people to listen to me,” said Jazmine Duke, an entrepreneur and author.

Duke one said one of the biggest challenges she is facing right now is trying to figure out how to financially step into a place where she is at with her business.

“I started my company with a vagina friendly bath bomb. I started because I couldn’t breathe in anything without some sort of infection or a rash or something crazy,” Duke said.

Owner of Owner, jD Organic Bath Company, she wants women to know how to care for their bodies.

Shaquita Smith

Shaquita Smith, an actress and producer, said the first three and a half decades of her life were free of financial problems. Then life started to take its course. The loss of her grandmother struck the most.

“I lost my grandmother… she was my everything,” said Smith.

Smith said when her grandmother came to Atlanta, they would spend time together and she was her best friend. Her grandmother passed away in 2013. She was diagnosed with stage four cancer in 2007.

Smith said dealing with loss, especially a significant loss when your heart is broken, can impact you emotionally, spiritually and financially.

“I think the biggest piece for me is just how do I keep moving forward with the people that I love the most,” said Smith.

Smith said the biggest thing is writing down your goals and manifesting what you want in your personal and professional life. “I navigate with a personal calendar, I cannot do anything without it,” said Smith.

She wants women to get an inch closer to their goals with small steps.

Jeannine K. Brown

“I am still very active in giving back to college students who are majoring in business,” said Jeannine K. Brown, a consultant with a business coaching firm.

Brown said it is important to be involved in your community because it is easy to get caught up in complaining about what issues are happening in your community.

The first thing Brown did when she moved here to Atlanta was getting involved in the community like feeding the homeless every Sunday. She wanted to get involved and serve the community.

She said serving has open doors for her to connect with other people and feed her business.

“Whatever is happening in your community that you’re passionate about, use your voice and your access to make change,” said Brown.

Chay Rodriguez

Chay Rodriguez, media personality said, “It is so important for me to set goals because I realized when I didn’t I fell back into old habits very quickly.”

She also said she likes to write her goals down and cross them out as she completes them. It gives her a satisfying feeling.

Rodriguez said it is also okay to take a few hours out of the day to yourself so you can recharge and then get back to work. Self-care is important and you need to unplug from work and the world sometimes to spend time for yourself.

At the end of the day, women have to meet and know themselves to find their real identity and be comfortable with being themselves.

Watch the event highlights: