Diversity leader.

L. Renee Richardson, Director of African American Markets for Tapestry 

Recent U.S. Census data shows blacks in the U.S. now represent 13% of the population, a 16% increase since 1990. According to the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth, by 2008, black spending power is projected to reach $921 billion. Since 1990, that's a growth spurt of 189%. Those numbers set the platform for L. Renee Richardson's charge in educating clients as director of African American markets for Tapestry, an advertising division of Starcom/Leo Burnett focused on ethnic marketing. "There is a more upscale, affluent consumer that is not predominantly in the minds of advertisers or marketers," she argues. "Hip-hop is a segment in the African American community, but it's not the only one. And [advertisers] are missing the diversity of the African American market. We want to [include] the business owner; the entrepreneur; the working mother who is successfully raising her kid; the father who may be raising his own children; and the male in the household, who we in the African American community see all the time. To other people, those images are not seen and, therefore, they don't associate them with our community."