LaTanya White, Ph.D., serves the Howard University community as associate director of the Howard University & PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship, a national resource hub advancing entrepreneurial leadership, business development and economic impact across communities and industries. White previously served the center in a volunteer capacity as conference track chair in 2024 and 2025. She has been a speaker at the conference each year since its inception.
White is a pioneering researcher, award-winning entrepreneur and creator of Dynastic Wealth®, a research-based financial wellness framework that empowers Black and brown families in their first generation of wealth creation. With more than a decade of experience as an entrepreneurship educator and a research background exploring 150 years of wealth distribution in America, she has guided more than 10,000 historically excluded families toward economic mobility through wealth literacy tools, coaching programs and trauma-healing methodologies.
Her influential work has been featured in ESSENCE Magazine and recognized by the U.S. departments of State and Commerce, as well as the U.S. Senate. She previously served as a special adviser to the Southeast MBDA, operated by Georgia Tech University, and is a member of the Fulbright Specialist Roster in business administration and education. She traveled to Tunis, Tunisia, to deliver startup business training to a cohort of women entrepreneurs as part of her first Fulbright Specialist Travel Award.
Holding a Ph.D. in leadership and change and an MBA, White brings more than 15 years of entrepreneurial experience to her multifaceted career as a TEDx speaker, author and policy advocate. She has delivered more than 60 workshops, led 14 research projects and created more than 50 learning experiences for historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions.
White holds a degree in hospitality management from the Art Institute of Tampa, with a focus on wine, spirits and beverage management. She previously held apprenticeships with Tales of the Cocktail, participated in the Beverage Alcohol Resource Program and served as an ambassador for Navan Liqueur. White is the founder of 71 Proof Hospitality Services, a Concept Creative Group brand, and has had cocktail recipes published in Cheers Magazine and Condé Nast Magazine. Her first ESSENCE Magazine feature appeared in November 2011 as the "Side Hustle of the Month" for her bartending business.
White is a two-time graduate of Florida A&M University, where she earned her Master of Business Administration under the leadership of founding Dean Sybil C. Mobley, Ph.D. White is a former professor at FAMU's School of Business and Industry, where she most recently served as visiting assistant professor, teaching strategic entrepreneurship, principles of management and professional leadership development. White served under the leadership of Shawnta Friday-Stroud, Ph.D., SBI dean emerita.
A native Floridian, White is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and was initiated into the Tallahassee Alumnae Chapter in 2005.
In her role as associate director, White reinforces Howard University's legacy of cultivating visionary leaders who transform their communities, ensuring the university's impact extends across generations and economic landscapes.
Leadership & Change
Antioch University
2022
Hospitality Management
Art Institute of Tampa
2009
Business Administration
Florida A&M University
2003
Business Administration
Florida A&M University
2000
Specialty Area: Building Family Wealth Dynasties
White's research explores the underlying causes of the racial wealth gap between Black and White Americans: the absence of intergenerational wealth transfers in Black business families. As American wealth becomes concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, the data reveal that one third of the 400 wealthiest Americans inherited their wealth from the entrepreneurial endeavors of earlier generations in their family, some creating entrepreneurial dynasties.
Access the full study at https://aura.antioch.edu/etds/758/
Dr. White's research explores the underlying causes of the racial wealth gap between Black and White Americans: the absence of intergenerational wealth transfers in Black business families. As American wealth becomes concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, the data reveal that one third of the 400 wealthiest Americans inherited their wealth from the entrepreneurial endeavors of earlier generations in their family, some creating entrepreneurial dynasties.
Access the full study at https://aura.antioch.edu/etds/758/
Stevie Awards for Women in Business (2024)
MEDWeek™ Legacy Awards presented by M. Gill & Associates in partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce (2024)
DC Black MBA Association (2025)
USASBE Minority Special Interest Group (2022)
African American Entrepreneurs Association (2022)
Bowie State University HBCU+ Entrepreneurship Conference (2021)
Watch: Essence | The Weight & Wonder of Being the First
Read: The Washington Informer | Dr. LaTanya White Wins Major Minority Business Enterprise Award
Generativity and Relational Wealth: Using Stewardship to Open the Door to Prosperity in Executive Leadership Council Journal (Spring 2022) (pp. 19-26)
In Generativity and Relational Wealth: Using Stewardship to Open the Door to Prosperity, Dr. LaTanya White shows how promoting Black dynastic wealth requires leveraging the concept of stewardship to increase the generative intent - and not just the corporate success - of Black professionals.
Dynastic Wealth™: An Approach to Advancing Racial Equity in Entrepreneurship Ecosystems in The HBCU Pipeline Project by the Center for Entrepreneurial Opportunity
Entrepreneurship is often a significant source of intergenerational wealth, but there are fewer opportunities for Black entrepreneurs to self-identify in the entrepreneurial process. As policymakers work to reduce the racial wealth gap and usher in a new era of entrepreneurship, they should look toward Dynastic Wealth, a model for wealth-building that encompasses the lived experience and ancestral narrative of Black and African American entrepreneurs.
This installment of the King Endowed Chair Lectures on Policy & Leadership is entitled "From Financial Literacy to Financial Power” Closing the Wealth Gap: Financial Literacy, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Power in Black Communities”. This will be a conversation on entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and strategies for building generational wealth in Black communities.
This week on “Black Men Sundays,” host Corie Murray interviews Dr. LaTanya White.
In this passionate talk, LaTanya White, an educator and advocate for entrepreneurs of color, doesn't think that oppression has to be the opposite of privilege.
