Today we’d like to introduce you to Barbara Jones-Brown.
Barbara, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in the sunny city of Austin, Texas. Like Atlanta, it’s hot in the summertime and I spent my summers curled up with a book. Not only a voracious reader, I enjoyed my English, science and math classes at school and dreamt of being an engineer. Then in high school, I took a computer programming class and fell in love with it. “I’m going to be a computer programmer,” I proclaimed to my family. Then, as the first member of my family to graduate from college, I got a Computer Science degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
After serving in the military during Operation Desert Storm, I was able to pursue my true passion—coding. As my career progressed, I traveled around the U.S. and even to Singapore. Yet, I saw few women who looked like me in the computer science world. I was often one of the only women on the team, but always I was the only Black woman coder on the team. So, I want to change that. Later, I was able to be part of the founding team at two tech companies that exited at $100 million.
Then, in 2013, I founded my own tech company right here in Atlanta. Freeing Returns (formerly known as Lillii RNB Inc.) has been a labor of love. Our company helps retailers succeed while taking care of the planet. Our products include an enterprise-wide profit optimization platform for retailers, a Salesforce app, and systems integration specialists.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
During the pandemic, we lost 50% of our customers because retail was hit hard. Many small businesses like mine didn’t make it. At one point, I didn’t even know if we’d be able to make payroll. My team has been a phenomenal support through the many challenges we’ve faced. Several employees have been with me since day one.
As the CEO of Freeing Returns, my biggest struggle has been with funding my business. As a business owned by a Black woman who is a veteran, our company has struggled with raising capital. Many investors have ignored or dismissed me. Sometimes, when I meet business leaders, they assume that I’m an employee and are visibly shocked when I say that I’m the founder/CEO. It even has become common for people to try to steal the consultants who work for me. This is illegal, but people do it openly. Systemic racism continues to make it difficult for our business to succeed in a market that doesn’t have much diversity.
Amid the pandemic, we connected with organizations like EnrichHER, which provides access to capital for women-led businesses. They have been a saving grace for us.
We’ve been impressed with Freeing Returns, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Freeing Returns helps retailers save money while saving the planet. Freeing Returns provides software that reduces loss to save retailers money, a Salesforce app to stop ecommerce fraud as well as expert systems integration consulting. Our company has been at the vanguard of IT consulting, helping Fortune 500 companies and government agencies increase their revenue while improving the IT experience.
Freeing Returns provides a way to solve total retail loss (industry speak for all the ways an enterprise may be losing money due to platform issues, training breakdowns and executional shortcomings that a retailer may have).
We were so honored to be named Minority Tech Firm of the Year in 2022. Thank you to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Minority Business Development Agency for this award. They see how Freeing Returns (formerly Lillii RNB) is bringing cutting-edge solutions to retail loss prevention. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/minority-business-development-agency-honors-140000758.html
How you can help:
– Follow us on social media and connect with me on LinkedIn to help amplify our voice. Your support is powerful.
– Invest in our company or connect us to investors you know who want to be part of something special. Join Serena Williams, who led our last seed round.
– Connect us to people you know who work in Loss Prevention at major retailers or grocery stores. We’d love to show them a demo.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
My family makes me happy. My husband is a great partner and I’m so proud of my daughters. In addition, something that makes me happy is bringing more ladies into IT and computer programming careers. With our philanthropic arm, Lillii, which stands for “Let’s Imagine Life with Ladies In IT,” we’re working hard to make this a reality. Right now, we’re adding 100 women from Luanda, Angola and Brazil to our program. We’re partnering with local non-profit organizations to do three main things:
– to celebrate the ladies who are already in IT
– to encourage more ladies to get into IT
– to celebrate our male advocates who also want to see more ladies in IT on their teams and in their companies.
This makes me SO happy!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.freeingreturns.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/freeingreturns
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/freeingreturns
Image Credits
Photo by Nicole Craine
