As the founder of the Women in Entrepreneurship column, I’m always searching for women who don’t just build businesses — they build impact.

This month’s conversation is about more than entrepreneurship. It’s about courage. It’s about leadership that starts from within. It’s about raising your hand when the room is quiet — and doing so with intention.

She is an entrepreneur, public speaker, advocate, and now a mayoral candidate. But at her core, she is something even more powerful:

A woman committed to liberation — both personal and collective meet Mayorial candidate Jaketra Bryant.

From Restriction to Freedom

Entrepreneurship wasn’t something Jaketra stumbled into. It was something she always knew she was meant to do — even before she had the language to claim it.

Her early journey, however, wasn’t without tension. As a single mother building something multidisciplinary and nontraditional, her vision didn’t always look familiar to those around her. Words like “stability” and “timing” were often used as cautionary guardrails.

“For a long time, those fears became restrictions I carried,” she shares. “The more I tried to conform, the more I realized that my purpose required freedom.”

Today, her business is rooted in dismantling internalized bias and helping others silence voices that were never theirs to carry. Drawing from her background in counseling, psychology, leadership practice, and social research, she designs research-based trainings that challenge conditioned thinking and empower people to reclaim their narratives.

“My entrepreneurship is about liberation — both personal and collective.”

The Discipline of Sustainable Leadership

When you wear multiple hats — entrepreneur, speaker, advocate, candidate — balance becomes intentional.

For Jaketra, grounding comes through movement. CrossFit. Bike rides. Routine. Even while recovering from a thumb injury, she adapts rather than abandons her practices. Stillness is equally important: therapy, quiet reflection, centering rituals.

“Leadership requires emotional awareness, not just endurance.”

She leans heavily on community — her son, her mother, close friends, and a circle that holds her accountable. Balance, she explains, isn’t automatic. It requires boundaries, honesty, and the willingness to step back when necessary.

“Sustainable leadership starts with being well within myself.”

A Voice That Found Its Purpose

Ironically, she was the child who got in trouble for talking in class. Straight A’s — conduct marks for speaking too much.

Public speaking never intimidated her. It energized her.

During graduate school, she realized she wanted to be on the other side of the podium. She wrote her first continuing education training for counselors and earned $300.

“That $300 didn’t matter. What mattered was that I started.”

After earning her PhD in executive-level leadership, she returned intentionally to speaking. Today, organizations invest thousands of dollars for an hour of her research, insight, and lived experience.

What began as passion evolved into purpose — and then into profession.

Entrepreneurship as Leadership Training

Entrepreneurship became her leadership classroom.

Budgeting. Fiscal planning. Culture building. Organizational sustainability. Long-term systems thinking.

“My PhD is in leadership focused on executive-level systems — not just management. Entrepreneurship is where I applied it.”

Jaketra quickly learned that trends fade, but culture sustains. That decisions made today ripple years into the future.

That systems-level lens shapes how she sees Columbus.

Columbus Through a Human Lens

“I don’t just see infrastructure. I see people.” Says Ms. Bryant.

Her background in therapy influences how she views the city. She sees resilience and diversity — but also pain. Rising crime. Overdevelopment in some areas while other neighborhoods remain neglected.

She came to Columbus seven years ago and fell in love with its closeness — the way familiar faces appear again and again. But over time, she watched that spirit strain.

Before entering the political arena, her work had her traveling nationwide training executives and organizational leaders. Professionally, she was thriving. Her son was thriving.

But she couldn’t ignore the question:

How do I keep moving forward while my city is hurting?

“What this city needs first is revival.”

She believes Columbus doesn’t lack potential. It needs leadership willing to center its people — to restore belief where it has worn thin.

Advice for Women Who Go First

As the first African American woman to make it this far on the ballot, she understands the weight of being the first or the only in the room.

Her advice to women stepping into unfamiliar spaces?

“Find your fellow outliers.”

They may not look exactly like you, but they understand what it means to go first — first in their family to graduate, first to build something unorthodox, first to live authentically.

“Outliers carry a different kind of bravery.”

She believes courage multiplies when shared.

A Lesson from a Hard Season

One of her most transformative seasons came while finishing her dissertation in nine months — simultaneously launching her business and leaving full-time government contract work.

“I pushed myself through sheer will. I wouldn’t recommend that pace.”

The lesson?

Strength does not mean doing everything alone.

Allowing support doesn’t diminish capability — it multiplies it. Once she built systems, delegated, and embraced collaboration, her business not only grew — it grew sustainably.

Grounded in Honesty

Jaketra’s daily grounding practice isn’t one perfect ritual. It’s honesty.

She allows herself to say, “I’m overwhelmed.”

She allows herself to cry.

She prioritizes therapy.

She makes space for joy — laughter, museums, music, cultural experiences.

Before stepping onto stages, she takes a moment to breathe and silently honor those who supported her journey.

“It reminds me that I’m not alone.”

The Legacy: You, Too

She recently wrote a book titled I Raised My Hand. The young girl in the story is unnamed — intentionally — because she is meant to represent everyone.

She sees a need. She raises her hand. Others follow.

That is the legacy she hopes to leave.

As the first Black woman to go this far on the ballot, she hopes the next woman — Hispanic, LGBTQ+, millennial, Gen Z — sees possibility.

“If she raised her hand, I can raise mine too.”

Because leadership, at its core, is not about power.

It’s about courage.

And someone always has to go first.

So my fellow women entrepreneurs, take it from a pioneer, stay grounded, learn from the lessons and never be too strong that you can’t lean on your people. 

I believe in you.