The Art of Accepting Help with Noel McKenzie

Noel McKenzie is a Black, Queer, Jamerican social entrepreneur and organizational development consultant based in Brooklyn, New York. He is Executive Director of Represented Foundation, the nonprofit he founded in Brooklyn in 2017 to make it easier for other Black and Brown entrepreneurs to get the tools they need to solve major issues in our society.

Drawing from his own experience as an HR professional and Black man in nonprofit leadership, Noel created Vision. Execution. Results. (V.E.R.) a social impact incubator and capacity-building program for other Black and Brown social entrepreneurs to turn their community-based ideas into businesses. Noel grew V.E.R. over four cohorts helping some 32 entrepreneurs take their ideas to the next level. Among others, his alumni have gone on to become Obama Foundation Scholars, Google for Startup and Black Ambition Prize fellows and finalists and have positively impacted over 14,000 people in New York,with new community-based services.

Noel is an American Express Emerging Leaders fellow of 2019, a 2020 honoree from the BET network’s Black Excellence Campaign, a 2021 inductee to the Black Innovation Alliance and the Aspen Institute for Emerging Social Purpose Leaders and a 2022 Roddenberry fellow. Noel is a graduate of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and earned his Masters Degree in Nonprofit Management from The Milano Graduate School at the New School in New York.