Bill Duke, part of the a Global I AM ARCHIVAL, is a pioneering actor, director, and Hollywood Walk of Fame honoree whose four-decade career sits at the intersection of culture and commercial film performance. His screen work alone is attached to films generating hundreds of millions in global box office, including:

• Predator — $98.3M
• Commando — $57.5M
• Exit Wounds — $79.9M

Behind the camera, Duke directed culturally significant studio features such as Deep Cover, Hoodlum, A Rage in Harlem, and Sister Act 2, expanding the commercial range of Black-led cinema. Within the Global I Am Archive, he stands as a disciplined cultural general whose work proves Black creative authority can travel — and monetize — at global scale.

Dean Nelson is an award-winning journalist, author, and master interviewer who has helped shape the modern literary conversation. He is the founder and longtime host of the Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University, where for more than three decades he has conducted in-depth public interviews with many of the world’s most influential writers and cultural figures.

His portfolio includes notable conversations with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jamaica Kincaid, Alice Walker, Amy Tan, Deepak Chopra, Ray Bradbury, and N. Scott Momaday. Known for rigorous preparation and probing inquiry, Nelson elevates the long-form interview into a form of cultural excavation across American and diasporic intellectual life.

A longtime professor and journalism program founder at Point Loma Nazarene University.

Devin Thorpe is a Forbes contributor, impact investor, and former public-company CFO whose career sits at the intersection of capital markets, entrepreneurial finance, and social innovation. As former CFO of USANA Health Sciences (NYSE: USNA), he helped scale the company through a period of hypergrowth that drove revenues past the $1 billion mark, sharpening his reputation as an operator who understands both balance sheets and market expansion.

A longtime Forbes voice on impact investing, crowdfunding, and financial systems change, Thorpe has published hundreds of columns analyzing how capital can be more efficiently deployed for both profit and purpose. He is also the founder of the SuperCrowd ecosystem and host of the Superpowers for Good podcast, where he has interviewed thousands of founders and investors building next-generation financial pathways.

Dr. Dennis Kimbro is a pioneering wealth scholar and bestselling author whose research helped codify the mindset and behavioral patterns behind Black wealth creation long before the data became mainstream. Best known for Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice and The Wealth Choice, Kimbro built his work on a seven-year study of nearly 1,000 Black millionaires, extracting repeatable disciplines of high-performing earners. 

For more than three decades, his books and executive lectures—used in corporate boardrooms and HBCU classrooms alike—have reached millions of readers and influenced entrepreneurs, executives, and wealth builders across the African American business class. 

The macro context underscores his relevance: Black Americans now command approximately $2.1 trillion in annual buying power, a figure that has more than doubled since 2000.  

Geoff Bennett is an Emmy Award–winning journalist and co-anchor of PBS NewsHour. Since 2023, he has helped lead one of America’s most respected nightly news institutions, following earlier roles with NBC News, MSNBC, and NPR covering the White House and Congress.

Bennett extends his cultural and market analysis in his forthcoming HarperCollins book, Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy, a deeply researched study of how Black comedians and 1990s television reshaped American media economics and cultural power. The book traces how Black performers moved from the margins to the center of American entertainment and influence. 

Within the Global I Am framework, he represents a modern institutional voice -demonstrating how credible journalism and cultural analysis together shape both civic understanding and the economic architecture of the American media landscape.

Michael Stradford is a veteran Hollywood executive and multimedia producer whose career spans film, television, music, and digital innovation, positioning him at the intersection of culture, technology, and commercial media strategy. 

At Sony Pictures, he led Digital Production and Development, producing and creating more than 35 web series and pioneering multi-platform film experiences including.  Early in his career he was mentored by the legendary Quincy Jones. 

Earlier in his career, Stradford produced value-added content for hundreds of major studio releases, collaborating with top-tier talent including Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, Pierce Brosnan, and Robert De Niro—work that quietly expanded the revenue tail of major film properties.

He later served as EVP of Acquisitions at Big Air Studios, further deepening his role on the business architecture side of the entertainment economy.

Paul Lovejoy is a crowdinvesting strategist, investment advisor, and financial systems reform advocate focused on democratizing access to capital. He is the founder and lead investment advisor of Stakeholder Enterprise, described as the nation’s first registered investment advisor specializing in crowdinvesting for the general public.

Through his research and writing—including his widely circulated Social Enterprise Alliance article on funding social enterprises—Lovejoy has championed models that decentralize both power and wealth in capital markets. He has personally executed hundreds of crowd-based investments, demonstrating portfolio returns and diversification strategies designed to open private markets to everyday investors. 

Reginald Hudlin is a filmmaker, producer, and media executive whose career has generated well over $700 million in global box office receipts, underscoring his role as both culture maker and economic driver.

His defining credits include:

• Boomerang — $131M worldwide (director)
• House Party — $26M worldwide (director)
• Django Unchained — $426M worldwide (producer)
• Marshall — $10M worldwide (director)
• The Black Godfather — major Netflix documentary impact (director/producer)

Hudlin’s work consistently demonstrates that culturally grounded storytelling can scale globally when paired with disciplined execution and studio-level production value. Beyond film, his leadership across television, awards production, and studio strategy has further amplified Black creative IP into mainstream markets.

Ruth E. Carter is an Academy Award–winning costume designer, cultural architect, and proven economic force whose work has helped drive more than $2.7 billion in global box office receipts across landmark films. A historic multi-time Oscar nominee and two-time winner, Carter has spent over four decades translating Black history, identity, and futurism into visual language.

Her most commercially powerful credits include:

• Black Panther — $1.35B worldwide
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — $859M worldwide
• Coming to America — $288M worldwide
• Malcolm X — $48M worldwide
• Selma — $67M worldwide

Her latest recognition—including her historic nomination for Sinners—continues to extend a career at the rare intersection of creative mastery, cultural authorship, and measurable market impact.

Tori L. Reid is a Global I AM ARCHIVAL multimedia host, producer, and cultural strategist bridging Black Hollywood legacy with global storytelling. A former Miss Golden Globe and co-founder of Victory & Noble, she is best known as creator and host of Here’s to Life with Tori Reid, a series broadcast to tens of millions, with downloads in 19 countries across the U.S., Europe, and Africa.

Her signature, emotionally intelligent interview style has featured Phylicia Rashad, Nikki Giovanni, Jenifer Lewis, Debbie Allen, Blair Underwood, Richard Roundtree, and Youssou N’Dour, among others. Reid also serves as executive producer of Getting Deals Done and special editor of Dispatches from the Vanguard.

Within the Global I Am ecosystem, she is recognized for combining Emotional IQ, Spiritual IQ, and rare insider fluency in the Hollywood industrial machine as well as Black Hollywood.