Kelisha Mills hosts mompreneurs at annual brunch

Kelisha Mills understands how it feels to have something she worked hard to build crash because of circumstances she couldn't control.

So for the third year, she pulled out all the stops when she hosted her annual Ultimate Mompreneur Brunch, at the Brix Hotel, in Cascade on October 15, to

offer guidance to mom entrepreneurs and their support system as they deal with the everyday challenges of owning and running their own businesses.

“We are here to celebrate each other, because we all face the same struggles and challenges. We often say that it takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to have a happy, healthy, thriving mompreneur. This is your tribe, your village,” she told those who attended the event.

Supported by her husband Colin and their children, Mills hosted moms who are courageously navigating the challenging waters of various entrepreneurial enterprises. Participating "mompreneur" benefited from a panel of women who offered advice – from parenting to business tips; from reminders about the importance of self-care to accessing their village. This year's panelists included Mills, public relations practitioner Kiki Ayers, CEO and founder of the Oxygen with Nicole (O2N) Foundation Nicole Dyer-Griffith, and social media influencer Antonia "Toni" Fifi who participated remotely from Toronto, Canada, via Zoom.

Mills has spent many years in the corporate world and acknowledged the wealth of experience she amassed by working in corporate TT in the area of procurement. She said after losing her mother to renal failure, she decided she needed a "life change," and two weeks later, moved to Tobago with her then boyfriend, now husband. Having the same professional background, they decided to establish their own business. They did what came naturally; sourcing hard-to-find items for third-party clients. She said that the enterprise really took off after about a year, but the economic downturn of 2009 caused their business to crash, and financial liquidity became a real problem for them, leading to its closure. This coincided with her 35th birthday – one that was spent with no cake, no ice-cream, no money. They had hit rock bottom.

Her journey back into the business fray came when her husband recognised the possibility of monetising what came naturally to him from his hospitality background – advising people seeking recommendations of where to stay and what to do in Tobago. This evolved into Tobago Concierge Services, which offers premium accommodation and everything else associated with visiting the sister isle.

Dyer-Griffith is a former Miss Trinidad and Tobago whose range of interests is vast. They include but are not limited to nursing, marketing, business management, behavioural risk management, corporate executive management, international protocol and business etiquette, personal and professional development and politics. She said she has aspirations of being the prime minister of TT, and that item continues to be on her bucket list. She encouraged the moms to, “Identify that point that you want to get to and own it; it matters not what anyone has to say, think or feel about where you need to go…”

Fifi, a mother of two, migrated to Canada with her husband to restart their lives from scratch. They faced unemployment, but through resilience and tenacity, and with the moral support of a good friend, her confidence was boosted.

“Her belief in me planted that seed, and we shouldn’t underestimate the value of simply lending support to the women around us,” Fifi said.

Fifi said she embraced the Caribbean essence that she had taken for granted and turned her life around, becoming one of Canada’s top black social media influencers and a respected television host of a fashion magazine programme on Canada’s CTV.

Ayers is an American born to a Trinbagonian mother. Her story saw her becoming unemployed after completing her college education at Howard University and stints at several major media networks in the US, including MTV, BET, NBC to name a few. Realising that mainstream corporate was not the right fit for her, she ventured out on her own, failing royally, until eventually giving birth to her dream company Ayers Publicity. After 16 months of being homeless, living in the lobby of a hotel, “I was alone. I didn’t tell my friends what was going on, but that was more like an embarrassment type thing.”

Her enterprise is now a six-figure entity; and after two years has provided PR services for the likes of Sean "P Diddy" Coombs, Russell Simmons and Jamie Foxx.