By: Airielle Vincent and Jailen Leavell

This week, we’re shining the spotlight on a career coach who is transforming Music City and the approach millennials take to professional development and success. Brittany Cole is a career consultant who helps educate, empower, and equip organizations to build inclusive leadership teams. As the CEO and founder of Career Thrivers, she’s focused on diversifying talent and helping to grow an inclusive culture within the workforce. Brittany touches on topics like personal branding, emotional intelligence, resilience, and inclusive leadership to build trust, as well as communication.

Brittany is working on changing the conversation around diversity and inclusion in the community. During her first TEDxNashville talk she focused on redefining resilience to cultivate a culture. In June, she held a forum with Nashville Mayor John Cooper to focus on allyship. “The goal was to educate people that allyship is a lifelong process and is identified by the group [for which] you are doing it,” Cole said. What makes her hopeful today is “seeing organizations taking a step back to ask what we are doing beyond the PR statements.” Brittany stresses diversity will be the norm in 50 years.

Brittany is a Nashville native who loves serving her community. In October, Watson Grove Baptist Church selected Brittany as one of its small grant recipients. The church raised the money in support of small businesses that were impacted by COVID-19. Cole says she plans to pay it forward by teaching other entrepreneurs how to brand and position their value to grow their money. She lives by the motto “every experience is an opportunity for continuous improvement.”