Episode 6 - Bending the Narrative Towards Possible with One Leap featuring Amber Scott

Amber Scott is Founder and Executive Director of Leap Year. A child of first-generation college students, the importance of higher education and the power that it can have to raise a family out of poverty was instilled in Amber at a young age. She believes that the opportunity for higher education should be open to everyone, regardless of where they are born. After working in the nonprofit sector for ten years, she founded Leap Year to challenge the status quo. Amber is a 2018 Echoing Green Fellow, a winner of WeWork's 2017 Incubate Creator Awards, and was recognized by Black Enterprise as alone of "25 Black Women Who Are Changing the World." She holds a BA in Neuroscience from Smith College, and an MBA in Marketing from Ohio State University. 

In this episode, Amber shares how she was able to leverage her experience in the nonprofit sector to create her own social enterprise. We reflect on college access/persistence as it pertains to some of the realities for first-generation students and how Leap Year is providing a gap year for exploration and service. We also reflect on the lessons learned in leadership, in a running a social enterprise with a women dominated workforce. Amber's work extends a charge to the importance and impact of preparedness as a narrative shift for not only the students but also their families and communities at large. 

We are bending the narrative of preconceived notions of the impossible as we share Forward 4O’s platform with this phenomenal WOC in the nonprofit and social enterprise sector.

Want to learn more about what Amber and her team are doing at Leap Year? Contact them directly and follow their latest updates on Instagram @leapyearusa.

Continue to support Forward 40 on IG and Twitter @forward4tea.  You can also learn more about the host Coach Faith here.