McKinsey & Company’s Consumer practice and the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility have joined forces with the New Voices Foundation (New Voices) to accelerate the growth of Black-owned brands. Through this collaboration, McKinsey & Company (McKinsey) will provide strategic support to New Voices member businesses (known affectionately as the New Voices Family) via its Next 1B: Scalers program and work directly with the New Voices team to expand and fine tune its operations, capacity and impact.

“Despite increasing demand from consumers and retailers, Black-owned brands face outsized challenges to profitable scaling. And we know that improving the success rate of Black-owned businesses is an essential component of improving economic mobility for communities,” says Tiffany Burns, McKinsey senior partner. “We believe, together with New Voices, we can change the odds by working hand-in-hand with these entrepreneurs to create bold and achievable growth plans.”

The Next 1B program is being rolled out to five New Voices Family businesses this year. Each brand works with a dedicated McKinsey team to understand the full opportunity across marketing, sales, product and operations, sequence growth levers and build a roadmap. They also receive guidance on pressing, near-in business questions, such as pricing, digital media or talent strategy.

“In these recessionary times, it’s imperative to not only use instinct and ownable data but to also be able to tap into broader market insights. Working with McKinsey allowed me to understand my advantages and opportunities to build a bigger, better business.” – Melissa Butler, Founder & CEO, The Lip Bar

This effort builds on the longstanding commitments that both McKinsey and New Voices Foundation have made. McKinsey’s 10 Actions for Racial Equity includes a commitment of $200M in pro bono work to advance racial equity and doubling spending with diverse suppliers. At New Voices, this builds on the impact already achieved within their network of 30,000+ Black and women of color entrepreneurs, which New Voices has supported through 1,300+ hours of business education, mentoring and coaching, significant networking opportunities, $25M+ of new capital to entrepreneurs.

“We are excited to work with McKinsey to expand the New Voices Foundation’s impact on people of color and woman-owned businesses,” says New Voices Foundation Chair, Richelyna Hall. “McKinsey brings its considerable expertise on scaling businesses profitably, and have demonstrated their commitment to small and minority-owned businesses.”

This collaboration comes alongside the 1-year anniversary of McKinsey’s Next 1B program launch. Over the past 12 months, Next 1B has worked with over 100 Black-owned businesses in its 2-month-long capability-building program, Founders, and has led growth projects for several businesses through the Scalers program.

“The Next 1B Scaler program has helped us create more equitable opportunities for our business. We are grateful for this collaboration; it provides best-in-class resources that add real value to founders. The work has helped us validate strategy, quantify assumptions and create insights that are actionable.” – Jason Crain, president, Slutty Vegan, Inc.