Atlanta's Top 25 businesses

Expansion and a political commitment to black business development make Atlanta the top choice for entrepreneurs

By AYANNA HUNT

When the ING Gazelle Index Survey released its 2003 fourth quarter findings, it brought encouraging news for Atlanta’s black business community.

The results, gleaned from surveys of 350 African-American CEOs, revealed that the city too busy to hate was the best locale for black business growth.

For Atlanta’s black business mavens, this news didn’t come as a shock. Every year since 1996, Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine compiles a list of the region’s top 25 black businesses.

From car sales to telecommunications, our list of the crème de la crème continues to reveal the vast contributions black businesses annually make to Georgia’s economy.

This year, most of our honorees saw increases in revenues; some were incremental and while others were much more significant.

Elayne Leathers-Hill, president of Prestige Design Group, a manufacturing and embroidery firm, ranked 25th among our 2003 honorees, but didn’t make the cut among this year’s top earners. However, her revenues doubled from $3.6 million in 2002 to $7.2 million in 2003.

Hill’s success –and the rise of other black FBEs – are one of the largest indicators that the city’s trend of producing successful black businesses is not likely to wane any time soon, says Dr. Thomas Boston, president of The Boston Group and lead researcher for the ING Gazelle Index.

In 2002, black FBEs contributed almost $14.5 billion in sales to the national economy, according to the Center for Women’s Research. Between 1997 to 2002, their numbers increased by 17 percent, and they now head 30 percent of black- and female-owned firms.

“When you look down the road and say what sector is likely to dominate the business landscape, it’s going to be women,” Boston says. “Not only are they growing, interestingly enough, businesses owned by females tend to be more profitable than businesses owned by males.”

Along with a new year of pain and profit, came a changing of the guard at two historic Atlanta businesses.

In 2003, after half a century as one of the top black owned construction firms in the country, Herman Russell, founder of development conglomerate, H.J. Russell and Company, passed the leadership baton of his $300 million plus empire to his youngest son, Michael.

Atlanta Life Financial Group, one of few remaining vestiges of Sweet Auburn Avenue’s glory days, also announced a change in leadership with new president Ronald Brown.

In this disconcerting economy, no business -- black or white – is safe from deficits, downsizing or demise. To stay viable, some of our honorees sought new alliances.

The Bronner Brothers conglomerate, headed by Bernard Bronner, has been a mainstay of black hair care products for over 50 years. Since then, the black hair care market has been flooded with a slew of hair remedies, many manufactured by white companies.

Bronner held steadfast and was recently named vendor of the year at Sally Beauty Supply and WalMart stores. Since 2002, their revenues increased by $13 million.

Gazelles also confirmed Georgia’s reputation as the undisputed Black Mecca: 20 percent claimed that Georgia was the most desirable location to start a new business or expand an established one.

This climate of attraction can be attributed to three main things, says Boston: Atlanta’s current political environment, the rapid growth of the state and the region’s political history of commitment to support black business
development.

“In politics you have a lot of ways people can create opportunities for entrepreneurs in public and private sectors from the federal level down,” Boston says. “You have to have a political environment that you have networks in, in order for there to be general opportunity for businesses. That’s one of the things Atlanta has going for it historically since Maynard Jackson.”

Because of this commitment from City Hall, offered in the form of affirmative action mandates in government contracts, black businesses are participating in virtually every aspect of business. Nationally black-owned businesses employ between 6 to 7 percent of the population. That figure is pretty much the same in Georgia and at its current rate of growth, will increase to 10 percent by the year 2010.

In Atlanta, about 80 percent of the employees in black-owned businesses are African American; nationally that figure is 55 percent. When you consider the nation’s 11 percent unemployment rate, encouraging black business development takes on increased relevance.

“If we have businesses that can generate an employment capacity equivalent to the unemployment rate, then that begins to cut in to the high unemployment,” Boston theorizes.

Another plus for black and female-owned businesses in Atlanta is the scope of the industries they are involved in. In the past, blacks were typically successful in the retail and service industries. Now industries with the most significant growth have matured into non-residential construction contracting, architectural and engineering services and professional business services, including consulting, management and financial services.

Of course, some industries remained strong.

Ronald Hill, founder of University Automotive Group increased his sales by almost $20 million in 2003.

Hill owns three dealerships in Atlanta, Macon and Gwinnett County. He attributes much of his increase to his Gwinnett location, which just began to settle into its own last year.

But when consumers are buying cars less and less, Hill had to get creative.

“Last year was a relatively rough year. Even though we show an increase it should have been greater than it was,” Hill admits. “Our business from our yearly forecast was off by 20 percent.”

His fleet sales improved by $6 million because of his staff’s vigorous pursuit of municipality contracts. He provides police cars and state patrol cars to Atlanta, Fulton and Clark counties.

He also used imaginative advertising to lure customers to the showroom; free vacations and workshops for maintaining your car kept his showroom floor busier than most.

But paying attention to the trends in technology is what made him a player in 2003.

His Internet car sales rose to 15 percent from 2 percent just five years ago.

Boston says more black businesses would be wise to emulate Hill’s focus on technology.

“Years ago people used to do a strategic plan and say ‘well in five years this is what I’m going to do.’ You can’t do that anymore,” Boston says. “Just two to three years out now technology changes and a host of new competitors have come into the market.”