Minority Business Development Agency Business Center operated by M. Gill & Associates Inc., in coordination with the Jamaica USA Chamber of Commerce recently celebrated the 33rd annual MEDWeek Confere
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jamaican Entrepreneur named among Influential Businesswomen of 2014
Miami, Florida: Jamaican Entrepreneur, Marie Gill, is among 24 prominent women business owners, selected by the South Florida Business Journal as Influential Businesswomen of 2014. Gill is being recognized for her leadership, business acumen, accomplishments and advocacy on behalf of small and minority-owned businesses, and volunteer contributions to her community.
Marie Gill has acquired extensive knowledge and expertise in marketing, public relations, and economic development, as a result of her many years of service with government and economic growth agencies throughout Jamaica. For more than 30 years, Gill has continued in that service role in Colorado, New Jersey, and since 1989 in South Florida. Her company, M. Gill & Associates, has amassed a clientele of fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, small/minority-owned businesses and international firms.
With consulting offices in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, and strategic partnerships in Monroe, Palm Beach, Orange, Brevard, Lee and Collier Counties in Florida, M. Gill & Associates has expanded its statewide reach, and is helping to grow small and minority businesses and revitalize inner city communities, with a special focus on Community Redevelopment Areas (CRAs). Her company provides community outreach, quality assurance and compliance, project monitoring, and economic development services to developers, corporations and government agencies throughout the State.
Her company is among Florida’s most accomplished in developing and growing small and minority businesses, in various targeted areas in cities throughout South Florida. The City of Miami is Gill’s Strategic Partner in hosting the MBDA Business Center in Miami. Other participating cities include, the Cities of Coral Gables, Hialeah, North Miami, Lauderhill, Lauderdale Lakes, Fort Lauderdale, and Pensacola.
Marie Gill is the first woman, the first Black, and the first of Caribbean descent to have won the U.S. Department of Commerce contract to operate the MBDA Business Center. Gill was recently honored by the MBDA as the National Performance Leader among all 44 MBDA Business Centers. Her high-achieving Business Center has facilitated over $1.4 Billion in government and commercial contracts, loans, bonding, and investments to minority-owned businesses. She is the official coordinator of MEDWeek, the largest federally sponsored business conference for small and minority businesses, held in South Florida every October.
Among her proudest accomplishments, she explains, is her work with Community Reinvestment Agencies to grow small businesses and to help revitalize inner city communities. For the past 12 years, M. Gill & Associates has provided technical assistance and paid focused attention to the City of Fort Lauderdale’s CRA, especially to businesses along the Sistrunk Boulevard Commercial Corridor. Over the years, her company has provided various CRA businesses with business planning, loan packaging, marketing research, marketing plan development, training seminars, and business coaching to start and expand.
As a result of those services, and in collaboration with the CRAs of Lauderhill, Lauderdale Lakes, and Ft. Lauderdale in particular, hundreds of small businesses have received entrepreneurship coaching, purchased and refurbish properties, expanded market share, and obtained loans and equity investments from the CRAs and various other sources.
M. Gill & Associates continues to provide technical assistance services on a weekly basis, on site from the offices of the Ft. Lauderdale CRA on Sistrunk Boulevard, on Thursdays, by appointment.
In making the Influential Businesswomen announcement, the South Florida Business Journal describes Gill as “having a phrase that defines an influential businesswoman, which is: ‘When Marie Gill talks, people not only listen, they act.’ Clearly the mark of a leader, she is known to get things done. As such, she has the ability to convince others to think and act in a desired manner.”
As Gill explained, “I’m not afraid of rolling up my sleeves and helping to get the job done—I try to lead by example.” But my most important mantra is “to know your job, know your customers, and always serve and respond with the highest degree of integrity when faced with both opportunities and challenges.”
As a member of the Jamaican Folk Revue, Gill stays in touch with her roots by singing, dancing and performing in skits and plays designed to create awareness of the Jamaican culture. She is a surrogate mother, a mentor and coach to several minority and women-owned businesses, provides internships for minority students, and volunteers her services as President of the Jamaica USA Chamber of Commerce, as Vice President of the Bi-National Chambers of Commerce of Florida, and as a board member of the Miami Bayside Foundation.
Among her various accolades, Gill received the African American Achiever Award from JM Family; was named Businesswoman of the Year by the S. Florida Business Journal; received the Thelma Gibson Award of Excellence from the Women’s Chamber of Commerce; received the Minority Business of the Year award from Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce; and was named “Best of Miami” by Miami Today newspaper. Marie Gill holds a B.Sc. Degree in Economics from the University of the West Indies, a M.A. Degree in Mass Communications, and an M.B.A. Degree from the University of Toronto.
Gill & fellow award recipients will be officially honored with the Influential Businesswomen Award for 2014, at a Luncheon on Friday, September 5, 2014 at the Signature Grand in Davie.