Getting laid off is something most people spend years trying to recover from. For Dr. Cameka Smith, it was the beginning of everything. When she lost her job at Chicago Public Schools in 2009, she was 29 years old, held a Master’s degree, and had been working since she was 12. Going back to find another job was the obvious move. Instead, she gave herself one year to figure out something different — and she never looked back. Seventeen years later, that decision has grown into The BOSS Network, one of the most impactful platforms for Black women in business in the United States.
How Dr. Cameka Smith Built The BOSS Network From a One-Year Bet on Herself
The BOSS Network — where BOSS stands for Bringing Out Successful Sisters — has reached more than 200,000 women, invested in over 100 Black female founders, and trained more than 10,000 leaders and entrepreneurs nationwide. Those numbers are staggering, but they started from a place that was anything but grand. Smith launched the platform with nothing more than a side event company, a servant’s heart, and a quiet conviction that Black women needed a space built specifically for them.
That conviction came from her roots. She grew up on the west side of Chicago in a family where giving back was simply a way of life. Her mother was a full-time chef who also did hair and sold dinners at church. Her grandfather and grandmother were both pastors.
“It was just instilled in me to always give back, to serve people. And so that was just my heart.”
That upbringing planted a seed that the BOSS Network would eventually grow into a national movement.
From Chicago Events to a National Platform for Black Women Entrepreneurs
The early days of The BOSS Network looked nothing like what it would eventually become. Smith was still figuring out her own next move when she began trying to help other women figure out theirs. The events she organized that first summer drew two and three hundred people — and afterward, women kept emailing her asking how to join. The problem was, there was nothing to join yet. It was just events.
A friend suggested she start a Facebook group, pointing out that the platform had grown well beyond college students. That simple nudge helped Smith realize the community she was building did not have to stay in Chicago. She launched bossonetwork.org about six months after those first events, at a time when blogs were just finding their footing and Twitter was barely off the ground. She leveraged both to grow the platform from a local event series into a national community.
The growth came fast and with real recognition. By 2010, Forbes had listed the site on two separate lists — one of the top 100 websites for women, and one of the top 10 for women focused on careers and entrepreneurship. Smith remembers the moment clearly.
“The only other Black woman on the list was Oprah. So I was just like, oh damn.”
The Boss Impact Fund, Boss Business University, and Investing in Black Female Founders
As the platform grew, so did its infrastructure. Smith built Boss Business University, a training and coaching program where women work with mentors one-on-one and in groups over the course of a full year. The model was designed around sustained engagement — not a one-time workshop or a downloadable course, but a long-term relationship between women and the people committed to helping them grow.
Then, in 2022, she launched the Boss Impact Fund, raising roughly $1.5 million with help from her long-time mentor Beverly Johnson and putting that money directly into 100 Black women founders. The fund attracted major partners including Sage, PepsiCo, JPMorgan Chase, and the Divine Nine, through which the organization invested $250,000 across four sororities to support approximately 20 founders. That kind of institutional backing reflects the credibility Smith has built over nearly two decades of consistent, community-centered work.
Smith also went on tour to five cities just one year into running the business, with no connections in those places and essentially no budget. She relied entirely on the women in her network to pull it together with donated venues, sponsors, and volunteer hours.
“I need everything for free,” she told them — and they came through. They sold out every city.
Navigating the DEI Funding Pullback and Launching Pathways to Success
The landscape Smith is operating in today is significantly harder than it was even a few years ago. DEI funding that once supported programs like hers has been pulled back or eliminated entirely across major brands, creating a real and immediate strain on the communities that depended on it.
“DEI has pretty much been diminished across brands and a lot of those programs supported communities like mines. A lot of that funding has been depleted. It’s been a struggle, not just for the founders that we support, but also for us as a community.”
Rather than retreating, Smith responded with strategy. She commissioned a qualitative report called Voices of Strength, interviewing 40 Black women founders to understand exactly what they said they needed most. The findings pointed clearly in one direction: funding mattered, but what women kept saying they were missing was people who stayed engaged long after a program ended. Most pitch competitions write a check and disappear. Smith built something different.
The result is Pathways to Success, a pitch competition developed in partnership with UK-based Sage — a company that has supported The BOSS Network since 2014. The program offers a $25,000 prize, but more importantly, it includes a full year scholarship to Boss Business University. That combination of financial support and sustained mentorship is what sets it apart, and the response from participants has been deeply emotional.
Dr. Cameka Smith’s Legacy: Community, Consistency, and Building for Black Women
What Smith has built over nearly two decades is not just a network or a nonprofit — it is a living, breathing community that shows up for Black women at every stage of their entrepreneurial journey. She has spoken at the ESSENCE Festival of Culture on multiple occasions, worked with Black Enterprise and Forbes, and helped produce events across the country. Through it all, the throughline has remained the same: Black women deserve access, investment, and a community that does not treat them as an afterthought.
“We have women on the phone crying on Zoom. Because our community is one that has always been there for Black women. We are just not here to create a virtual program that you can go online and download.”
That distinction matters enormously in a world that has become saturated with online courses and virtual summits that offer polish without presence. Smith has always chosen presence — the kind that requires real investment of time, energy, and relationship-building that no algorithm can replicate.
When asked to reflect on everything she has built, Smith does not hesitate.
“I’m very proud of what I’ve built. I have a community of women that really love and support me and they value what we do. And that means a lot. That’s my legacy.”
That legacy — rooted in a single year of betting on herself — has become one of the most enduring success stories in Black women’s entrepreneurship. And if the past seventeen years are any indication, Dr. Cameka Smith is far from finished.
