This week we’re back to Borderless Building with Black Women in Real Estate. So far this year we’ve showcased the personal and professional journeys of Black women in careers spanning project design, development, investor relations and community engagement with experience from as far east as Japan to the western United States. This week we’re taking a grip down south--south east to be more precise with a finance professional doubling as a farmer. She truly embodies the spirit of land stewardship.
Chanell Henry is a British-Jamaican entrepreneur, with a background in investment operations across hedge funds and asset management in London. After several years working in finance, Chanell made the decision to channel her commercial and investment experience into agriculture, co-founding Clarendon Gold Limited - a 100-acre commercial orchard, with her father, Vendrys Henry.

Together, they are applying all of their crafts and learning all things commercial orchard farm in Clarendon, Jamaica, where their primary crop is ackee - Jamaica’s national fruit. All the while, they are also building the infrastructure, team and commercial relationships needed to develop a wider agricultural business. Self-funded with over £300,000 invested to date, Clarendon Gold is being built with a long-term vision spanning cultivation, processing, packaging and export.

Chanell’s journey reflects her commitment to connecting diaspora capital and expertise with productive opportunities in Jamaica, while contributing to local employment and the development of Jamaica’s agricultural value chain.

Where to find Chanell?
On the farm @ Clarendon Gold

What’s Chanell reading, watching and listening to?
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Educated: a memoir by Tara Westover
The Office
Michael, the movie

Other topics of interest:
South East London Flavour
About Clarendon, Jamaica
Jamaica’s Argo Parks Initiative
About Grace Kennedy
A documentary about Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa

Special Guest: Chanell Henry.

This week’s encore episode revisits a conversation with a fellow teammate and black woman in real estate, motivational speaker, 5-time Olympian representing the Bahamas, and #ChocolateCardinal, Jacqueline "Jackie" Edwards-Flowers.

As an adjunct to our collaboration with Black Women in Real Estate, which, so far taken us from London, via Nigeria and Barbados, to The South Bronx in the United States. Keeping local in the US, we’re traveling across the country from New York to California, via the Bahamas (and Jamaica) where we get into real estate from the value-added perspective. With a professional background spanning competitive sports, personal training, entrepreneurship--she founded a compressions socks company, and event planning, Jackie’s path in real estate is grounded in the know how and passion to apply her marketing, design and project management skills in getting to “Sold!”

Be sure to continue following our #BorderlessBuilding series, back next month, with another scaffolding conversation and Pan-African women’s real estate story (pun in tended 😉).

Where to find Jackie?
Gold Medal Home Staging and Design
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On Thumbtack
On Wikipedia

What's Jackie watching?
HGTV
The Bachelorette
The Bachelor
The Real Housewives of Atlanta

What's Jackie reading?
Crushing: God Turns Pressure into Power by T.D. Jakes

Other topics of interest:
Thomas Robinson Stadium
Frank Rutherford
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Brooks Johnson
Mike Powell
Meet Dr. Ross Flowers
Altra Running Shoes

Special Guest: Jacqueline "Jackie" Edwards-Flowers.

This week in our continuing Glocal Citizens x Black Women in Real Estate and Green For All, and in 2017 opened the Boogie Down Grind — a hip-hop-themed coffee and craft beer spot, the first commercial "third space" in Hunts Point since the mid-1980s. Her 2022 book, Reclaiming Your Community: You Don't Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One, argues that communities thrive when they retain talent and investment rather than losing both to brain drain — a line from the book is now quoted on the walls of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

This conversation was truly a treat as trip down memory lane to my early career working across the five boroughs in New York City. I have watched an admired Majora’s economic development acuman since visiting Sustainable South Bronx in the early 2000’s as I was getting my start managing and tech-focused industry development project at the New York City Economic Development Corporation. It speaks to the spirit of this BWRE collaboration bringing together Black women in the real estate sector showcasing the personal and professional journeys and highlight how Black women in the industry invest and structure value in/around land/property across global markets and so much more.

Where to find Majora?

On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On YouTube

What’s Majora reading?
All the Shah’s Men by Stephen Kinzer

Other topics of interest:
Hunts Point, Bronx
Coro Fellowship
The Burning Bronx
US Green Building Council
Meet Winona Leduke
About the White Earth Reservation
Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise Podcast
Where were America’s Black Wall Streets
What is Birch Coffee all about?
Cass Gilbert, Architect
Bronxlandia

Special Guest: Majora Carter.

This week on the podcast we have another installment of Glocal Citizens x Black Women in Real Estate collaboration--Borderless Building. Throughout the year, we’re hosting conversations with BWRE members showcasing the personal and professional journeys of Black women in the real estate industry across tthe global. We’re highlighting how Black women in the industry invest and structure value in/around land/property across global markets; and how we are offering valuable insight into the business/operational functions in the real estate industry to inspire a spirit of land stewardship. You’ll hear this and more in this week's conversation.

My guest, Nioki Doggett comes to us from the UK by way of her Bajan roots in Barbados. Throughout her career, she’s helped institutional investors across the globe navigate complex real estate markets and find high-conviction opportunities, building the kind of trust that turns one-time conversations into decade-long partnerships. As Lead Business Development and Investor Relations Director for M&G Real Estate's European Platform, she drives capital growth and delivers tailored investment solutions for global institutional investors. Her work sits at the intersection of relationship management, market insight, and strategic advisory.

Beyond her core role, Nioki is actively involved in shaping the broader real estate and investment community as a Committee Member of the INREV DDQ Committee, the Guild of Investment Managers, Ladies in Real Estate. She is a mentor at Chancerygate supporting real estate undergraduates entering the industry, and conference moderator and panel speaker on real estate and investment topics.

Listen and learn more about how her deep expertise in real estate investment dynamics and global investor network spanning multiple markets and geographies are creating value where it counts.

Where to find Nioki?
On LinkedIn
@ Ladies in Real Estate (LiRE)

What’s Nioki watching?
Grey’s Anatomy and other shows by Shonda Rhimes
Apprentice UK
Dragon’s Den

What’s Nioki listening to?
Bruno Mars
Marvin Sapp
Adele
Olivia Dean
Daniel Caesar

Other topics of interest:
About Black Women in Real Estate
About Barbados now and Bajan roots
Reading, Berkshire
Royal Borough of Windsor

Special Guest: Nioki Doggett.

If it’s March then it’s that time again for a month of conversations centering women’s stories and experiences. This week, we’re also kicking off the series with the launch of our Glocal Citizens x Black Women in Real Estate collaboration--Borderless Building. Founded in 2019, Black Women in Real Estate (BWRE) is an organization that aims to bring together black women in property, creating opportunities for upcoming talent and organizing workshops for those already in the industry. Througout the year, we’re teaming up with BWRE to showcase the personal and professional journeys of Black women in the real estate industry; highlight how Black women in the industry invest and structure value in/around land/property across global markets; and offer valuable insight into the business/operational functions in the real estate industry to inspire a spirit of land stewardship. All ideas you’ll hear in this week's conversation.

Kicking off the series is BWRE Founder, Hanna Afolabi. A few years after founding BWRE, Hanna found herself furthering her entrepreneurial journey with Mood and Space (MAS), a development company supporting clients in embedding social value in their development vision and strategy as well as efficiently managing processes delivering community focused building and urban neighborhoods.

Prior to setting up MAS, Hanna was a Development Director for Balfour Beatty Investments seconded into East Wick and Sweetwater Ltd a joint venture with Places for People. She lead on the feasibility, business planning, budget, design, programming and planning of the mixed-use regeneration project of approx. 1,900 homes on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Her other notable projects in London, include Hallsville Quarter in Canning Town and Borough Triangle in Elephant and Castle.

Additionally, she is Vice Chair of the University of Greenwich’s Construction, Property and Surveying Practices Industry Advisory Board and is on Estates Gazette's Diversity & Inclusion Content Advisory Panel, advocating for diverse representation in property.

Where to find Hanna?
Black Women in Real Estate (BWRE) and get your tix to their International Women’s Day Gala
@ Mood and Space
On LinkedIn
On Instagram

What’s Hanna watching?
All her Fault
Bridgerton on Netflix
His & Hers on Netflix

Other topics of interest:
Oke-Ila in Osun State, Nigeria
About Hackney
Estates Gazette

Special Guest: Hanna Afolabi.