Monique Greenwood, part of the husband-and-wife team behind the Akwaaba chain of bed & breakfast inns (B&B), is the featured Entrepreneur of the Week on this week’s edition of the Black Enterprise Business Report, hosted by Caroline V. Clarke. Started in 1995 with the opening of a groundbreaking urban B&B in Brooklyn, NY, Akwaaba now also boasts locations in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, and two additional inns in Cape May, NJ.
Greenwood, author of the book Having What Matters: The Black Woman’s Guide to Creating The Life You Really Want, owns and operates Akwaaba with her husband, Glenn Pogue. Together, they’ve overcome challenges including several recessions and Hurricane Katrina (which hit only months after the July 4, 2005 grand opening of Akwaaba in the Bayou in New Orleans). Greenwood talks with BEBR Correspondent Shannon Lanier about what it took to establish a hospitality brand that is recognized as the standard bearer for urban B&Bs, one that has inspired other African American innkeepers.
by BlackEnterprise.com Posted: June 23, 2011