Niani Tolbert
SHE / HER / HERS
Niani Tolbert is the founder of HIREBLACK, which helps Black women get trained, hired, and promoted in corporate positions (and a $2.1M+ increase in combined income). Niani is also a speaker, teacher, coach, and has led workshops at Advertising Week, University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and NYU Stern School of Business.
Every relationship we enter, whether it be a role or organization, must be intentional.
Popular Talks
What is Your Career Constellation?
We typically hear about being guided by our north star. As I narrate my personal journey, we explore identifying and connecting the shining moments, skills, and experiences in your career to form your very own ‘Career Constellation’. This unique pattern not only showcases your past but lights the path for your future aspirations.
Key Features:
- Star Selection: Dive deep into your professional past, present, and future, identifying the pivotal ‘stars’ or moments that have shaped your journey.
- Constellation Creation: Learn how to weave these stars together, creating a story or pattern that makes your career unique.
- Future Forecasting: Use your constellation as a celestial map, guiding you toward future opportunities and showing where you might want to add stars next.
Managing your Inner Child at Work
This talk offers a unique lens to view your professional self, imploring us to explore the profound influence of our inner child on our professional demeanor and decisions. Through candid and relatable stories, this talk aims to unearth the playful, curious, and sometimes vulnerable “inner child” within each of us. We’ll delve into understanding its presence, acknowledging its impulses, and channeling its energy productively in a workplace setting.
Key Features:
- Inner Child Identification: Recognize the moments when your inner child takes the reins—be it curiosity, creativity, fear, or defiance—and understand why.
- Balancing Act: Learn techniques to harmonize the spontaneity and creativity of the inner child with the responsibility and pragmatism of the adult professional.
- Emotional Mastery: Equip yourself with strategies to manage emotional surges, ensuring they don’t derail professional interactions or decisions.
Workshops
Advocating for Yourself at Work
This workshop aims to ignite your inner spark, teaching you to recognize your worth and assertively voice your needs and aspirations. We’ll guide you in understanding your intrinsic value and translating it into effective self-advocacy in your professional environment.
Key Features:
- Self-Worth Assessment: Engage in introspective activities to understand and appreciate your professional journey, strengths, and unique value propositions.
- Effective Communication Strategies: Learn how to assertively convey your achievements, needs, and aspirations in ways that resonate with your audience, be it peers, supervisors, or stakeholders.
- Negotiation Techniques: Equip yourself with the skills to confidently navigate conversations about promotions, raises, or workplace changes, ensuring that your contributions are acknowledged and rewarded.
Inclusive Team-building through Storytelling
In this workshop, we’ll use storytelling as a tool to bridge gaps, encourage empathy, and forge stronger team connections. By embracing the diverse tapestry of experiences within our team, we aim to build a more understanding, connected, and inclusive work environment.
Key Features:
- Diverse Narratives: Participants will share personal tales, tapping into emotions, backgrounds, and experiences that are both unique and universally relatable.
- Guided Reflection: Our facilitators will guide participants through a process of introspection, ensuring every story is met with respect and empathy.
- Interactive Activities: Through engaging exercises, we’ll uncover common threads that weave us together, highlighting the similarities that exist beneath our individual experiences.
“Niani has been a guest speaker 4 times (and planned for more in the future) with our team at Home Chef. She is great at listening to your goals at what you’re trying to achieve, and customizing her workshops to ensure they are impactful for all attendees. She is in a constant state of elevating her content with us so it’s always engaging and educational. She is someone you WANT to listen and pay attention to – I would highly recommend her services for your teams!”
– Becky Braud, Learning & Development Specialist, Home Chef
Niani Tolbert us a marketer-turned-tech recruiter-turned-founder of the HIREBLACK, which started as a viral LinkedIn post in 2020. The organization helps Black talent get trained, hired, and promoted in corporate positions.
HIREBLACK is now a network of 20,000 people and counting featured on Forbes, ESSENCE, CNBC, Business Insider, LinkedIn News, theSkimm, and more.
Since its inception, HIREBLACK has worked with companies like Amazon, Disney, Conde Nast, Niantic, Spotify, Uber, and more—reportedly increasing the total compensation of the members by over $2.1 million.
Niani is a speaker, teacher, coach, and has led workshops at Advertising Week, University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and NYU Stern School of Business.
She is a recipient of National Urban League’s Young Professionals Honors Award, the 2022 NAACP Powershift Grant in 2022, and the Essence x Pine-Sol Build Your Legacy Contest in 2021. In 2020, Niani won the Future of Work grant by Create & Cultivate, was an honoree of the Future is Female award by Advertising Week, and was an honoree of the Diversity and Inclusion Award from the Women’s Empowerment Institute in 2020.
Let’s collaborate to ensure a transformative experience.