Meet Jay-Ann Lopez, the award-winning Founder and CEO of Black Woman Players, Co-Founding father of Curlture, and proud BAFTA member and decide.

Jay-Ann based Black Woman Players with the mission of advocating for range and inclusion whereas amplifying Black ladies’s voices within the gaming trade. With Black Woman Players, Jay-Ann has constructed model partnerships geared toward rising Black ladies’s fairness within the trade within the type of expertise brokering, consulting, revolutionary advertising and marketing options, occasions, and content material.

Her advocacy doesn’t cease within the gaming trade. Jay-Ann expands her continued push to amplify Black ladies within the magnificence house along with her Curlture model the place she celebrates Black magnificence and tradition and addresses vital points on identification, self-love, pure hair, and the whole lot in between.

Jay-Ann combines all of her efforts into her Gamer Women Night time occasions that are the primary ladies and non-binary-focused occasion that mixes gaming, magnificence, and vogue and proves that women, ladies, and non-binary people can do all of it!

Talking completely with BLACK ENTERPRISE, Jay-Ann shares the inspiration behind her corporations and mission to unfold the Black Woman Players motion globally.

Inform us concerning the inspiration behind Black Woman Players.

I used to be seeking to meet and join with different folks that play video games. I didn’t need to interact with the present tradition in gaming which was sexist, racist, and exclusionary. I wished to search out ladies like me and from my prior expertise with Curlture I discovered learn how to curate on-line communities.

What are among the methods Black Woman Players works towards fairness and inclusion within the gaming trade?

We work in 5 methods to extend fairness and inclusion within the gaming trade and past:

1. Consultancy– Our group has consulted for numerous shoppers, together with Sq. Enix, Maybelline Cosmetics NY, alcoholic beverage corporations, and TV & Movie manufacturing corporations to result in their profitable integration and/or execution of their tasks, merchandise, or campaigns.
2. Group – For eight years (and counting), Black Woman Players has held the standing of the biggest gaming protected house for Black Ladies on this planet. We goal to maintain our members protected and linked while additionally providing schooling alternatives to demystify profession paths in gaming for our group members and exposing them to different features of the trade by way of occasions and mentorship applications.
3. Occasions – We’re identified for creating revolutionary, inclusive, and distinctive occasion experiences for all ranges of players. Previous occasions have included a Move the Pad occasion sequence in partnership with Belong Gaming Arenas, Gamer Women Night time In, retailer takeovers, integration into Adidas occasions like #MadeOriginals Blue Area, and experiential film screenings in partnership with movie studios.
4. Content material – Throughout all of our social media platforms, we generate and execute content material ideas that stand out in opposition to the established order, usually innovating within the gaming house. A few of which embody press junket content material, pink carpet interviews, recreation aspect chats, and our proprietary gameshow Play or Move.
5. Expertise – BGG Expertise is our expertise brokering verticle the place we’re the trusted companions of our shoppers to supply and dealer the wonderful expertise we have now inside our international group. As a part of our mission, we’re devoted to giving Black Ladies extra fairness within the gaming trade. Previous shoppers have included H&M, Google, Samsung, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Advantages Cosmetics, and numerous TV casting businesses within the US and Europe.

What are your plans for increasing Black Woman Players?

I need to proceed to extend fairness for Black ladies in quite a lot of methods. We need to companion with corporations to offer applications and partnerships to advance Black ladies, create a job board for Black ladies with alternatives in numerous industries, make impactful occasions within the US market, develop BGG’s expertise arm, look to create new and contemporary content material from the Black girl gamer perspective and convey on buyers to develop our US and UK groups.

We’re additionally seeking to companion and seek the advice of with non-gaming manufacturers to assist them enter into the gaming trade (vogue, magnificence, music, and many others). And provides them a perspective that doesn’t simply focus on white male players.

What has the response been wish to your Gamer Women Night time In and what’s your mission behind the occasion?

Gamer Women Night time In is a co-produced occasion between Black Woman Players and Nnesaga, and although my work for Black Woman Players focuses on Black Ladies and non-binary folks; I additionally wished to create an influence and an empowering house for all ladies/femme-identifying and non-binary folks. Gamer Women Night time In is certainly one of my love letters to the trade; it’s one of many first occasions to be created from a non-male lens and it combines gaming, magnificence, and vogue. The response has been overwhelming after each occasions, they each offered out with worldwide demand together with the USA, therefore my transfer to the States to develop Black Woman Players and GGNI.

Inform us concerning the inspiration to your Curlture model and any plans for its future.

Curlture was impressed by our want for a dialog about Black hair, tradition, and vanity. On the time, there was an enormous quantity of discourse within the States however it was very a lot underground within the UK, so we created Curlture to assist carry significant conversations about Black hair and its interplay with the Black psyche to the forefront. As a result of my transfer, we’re now not engaged on the platform, however we’re leaving our web page up and our e-book, KINK, continues to be on sale as a legacy and love letter to Black folks in every single place.

Any upcoming tasks we must always learn about?

We do have issues within the works in the meanwhile which might be beneath wraps. We’ve plans to do extra occasions within the UK and US and we’re working with some main manufacturers for the upcoming years.