Atlanta is one of the centers of Black entrepreneurship in America. But it's way more than that. We'll check in with the mayor of the biggest city in the south on why Atlanta works, and why you should want to do business here too.
Andre Dickens, Mayor of Atlanta Interviewer: Seth Cohen, Chief Impact Officer, Forbes.
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Andre Dickens, Mayor of Atlanta Interviewer: Seth Cohen, Chief Impact Officer, Forbes.
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Now for a special conversation, please welcome back interviewer Seth Cohen and mayor of Atlanta Andre Dickens
00:08Let's get it for the mayor
00:10Come on
00:15God we got the mayor in the house. Hey, what's up, everybody?
00:19What's going on? Okay, I actually got to be honest. We were just talking we have like two mayors in the house
00:25But this is the mayor
00:27That's right. Yeah, y'all want me to get out of the way so y'all can get to the other mayor
00:31Which is the main Dupree to me. So I'm here. So I want to jump right in
00:36Mayor Dickens because first of all, I want to thank you for hosting us for this and having us here in Atlanta. Yes
00:41This wouldn't be possible without you and your support of what we're doing
00:46You as we were just discussing this week celebrated your 50th birthday. You're a young man. Yeah
00:51That's right. If you're young y'all years young look at this audience. Everybody you 22
00:57I'm 50 and I look a lot older
00:59So but but I I know since we last spoke you've learned a lot a lot's changed in Atlanta things are just happening
01:05Yeah, what what have you in this past year at 50 years old?
01:09just sprinkle us a little bit of wisdom of what you've learned in the past year as the mayor of Atlanta and
01:16Well in 2024 it's a lot yeah, I've been mayor I've been a mayor two and a half years
01:23But I've been 50 only seven days, right? So this wisdom
01:27It showed me how fast you can get gray hair in this job. This was black
01:33Started but I you know, I was born and raised here. This was my dream job since I was 16 years old
01:38I wanted to be the mayor of Atlanta and then I became an engineer and in a business owner just like these folks right here
01:45So that the challenges that I endure as mayor, you know, I'm using all these experiences
01:50I've had whether it's being an engineer trying to solve problems or whether it's been a business owner
01:54That's trying to think about my employees
01:56So when we have challenges, I think about small businesses and how we can work together
02:00So I always call Atlanta a group project because I believe that I'm you know business minded but community focused
02:07And so that kind of helps what my you know administration is all about
02:12So as a council member for eight years
02:14Working as an at-large council member serving the entire city of Atlanta when I rolled into mayor
02:19the wisdom just just came right away because you know
02:23I'm trying to push an aggressive agenda about about equity and inclusion and connectivity amongst neighbors and public safety
02:30All of that together, you know makes for a better Atlanta
02:33And so I've gotten you know in two and a half years you get wiser
02:36Yeah
02:40Well you you we were backstage just now with
02:44With Jermaine and and you know, you just spoke a little bit about growing up in Atlanta
02:48There's this whole thing that those of us that live in Atlanta talk about like the Atlanta way
02:53This is the Atlanta way and I want to know what that means to you
02:57Like we talked about the Atlanta way whether it's in our culture whether it's in our business. What's the Atlanta way to you?
03:03Yeah, so, you know, there's an Atlanta way of the past and then there's an Atlanta way kind of 2.0 happening
03:10Right now. I'm the seventh black mayor in a row
03:13Maynard Jackson. Yeah
03:17Seventh black man in a row Maynard Jackson broke the mold in
03:201974 when he became the first african-american mayor of the Deep South and so all of us are standing on his shoulders
03:27The year that I was born is the year that he became the first black mayor
03:31So I have only been under the mayority of black folks
03:37Yeah, and so he ushered in inclusion. He was about business and economic development inclusion
03:43We had the numbers so to speak. It was more
03:46minorities in the city than majority so
03:50African-americans would have I know what a majority
03:52But we weren't a majority in terms of business contracts. That's right government contracts. We didn't have
03:58That the world's busiest airport was not the world's busiest at that time
04:02But Maynard had a vision that this airport can go places and do things and so he was expanding it
04:06But when he looked out at the contractors, he saw that there were
04:11very few minority contractor
04:13yeah, and so he said he halted all of the construction and he said
04:1825% of this construction at this airport needs to have minority minority vendors minority contractors
04:25He went out there and he said now here's the deal
04:28Y'all can get 75% of this major project or you can get a hundred percent of nothing because I will stop it
04:35Yeah, that grit that determination has led to the world's busiest airport that has a 38%
04:41Participation of minority businesses and made more black millionaire than anything in this city
04:46And so that's the Atlanta way is saying listen, we're gonna be included. It's not just about
04:51Counting heads and saying there's more black people than others. It's about can we count dollars? Can we count opportunities?
04:56Can we count inclusion and and are we you know together on this and you know, it does seem like Atlanta
05:03Every big city has its challenges and every big thing. I don't need to tell you that's what you're working on all the time
05:09But you know
05:10It does seem like there is a sense of a spirit in Atlanta that we're better together when we do this together
05:16And I guess you know
05:19Why have we been immune to some of these other challenges that other cities have fallen victim to?
05:25by collaborating better like
05:27Is that the business community? Is that leaders? Is it all of the above?
05:30But why are we not falling victim to some of these other cities strife? Yeah
05:35Well, I don't want to count our chickens before they hatch
05:37I don't want to get ahead of us and saying that we're you know
05:41Future-proof and bulletproof and that this that this thing is perfect, right? Atlanta is not a utopia
05:46We have our challenges. We work on it every single day. It's a slippery slope
05:50You can become name your city on the west coast that has no middle class, right?
05:55They're literally people have to drive an hour and a half to go to work to be able to be firefighters school teachers
06:03baristas at the coffee shop
06:04You can't you we want to make sure that we're not that place or you can be a place that has 600 murders a year
06:11That if you don't do this balanced growth
06:14So Atlanta's growing and we're thriving and we're now the sixth largest metropolitan area in the United States
06:21We have 1.8 million more people gonna move into this city in the next 25 years according to demographers folks are moving here
06:28Yeah, and you but we don't want to lose the richness of the culture and the existing population that is here
06:34We don't want to price people out
06:35We don't want to see to be a city of haves and have nots so you have to have balanced growth
06:40And so how we've been somewhat immune to it and I can't even hear it with an honest heart say that we are
06:46Fully there. We are working on it every day because gentrification is real and the challenges of
06:51Even even the area we're in right now. Yeah, I'm part of town. Yeah, this this area is not what this was exactly
06:58Those who know the real?
07:02Glad to be here with y'all this one that
07:06I
07:08Saw
07:09But when it is this now, how do we have opportunities for everybody to participate? So you're right it is
07:16Intentionality that makes Atlanta unique we focus on this. It's in my vision statement. It's in previous mayor's leadership
07:23we have opportunity to preserve what we have here as culture and to be inclusive with all the
07:30You know all the folks wholeness in Atlanta
07:33You can bring your own wholeness who you are bring it to Atlanta and we have our own culture
07:38That's a great. That's a great question because we got some people from Charlotte way here
07:42We got some people, you know from Nashville
07:45Greenville like there's a lot of stuff popping up in the southeast the rest of the country's figured out what we got going down
07:51Except maybe the hot the heats gonna keep them away
07:53But but when someone's looking to come and move their business to Atlanta or they're looking to move from the northeast
07:59They get smart and they move from the northeast and they're looking the southeast
08:02What's our you know?
08:04Is there something very compelling that you're thinking about right now that gets us look Nashville's good
08:09We and I know you know, you know all these mayor's so you don't want you want to say anything negative about them
08:14But how do you?
08:16Differentiate yourself between Nashville
08:18Charlotte Atlanta for a small business coming here. What do we got?
08:22Yeah
08:22So much love to everybody in the South and the South got something to say for sure everybody's moving to the south, right?
08:30No doubt Andre 3000 references have to happen anytime
08:33But the South got something to say you move you folks are moving to Charlotte, Nashville, Miami, etc
08:39But they are moving to Atlanta and Atlanta has its own special salt
08:44So much love to buy my mom and by Lyle's the mayor of Charlotte and others, you know, all the Southern mayors
08:50We love them, but Atlanta's got something special. It's in our DNA
08:53Yeah
08:54It's literally when we're other places are trying to figure out DEA is in who we are
08:58While others are trying to you know, other state and other places are stripping it away. We're doubling down on yeah
09:04You know
09:05My chief equity officer is in this audience and folks in his room are from invest Atlanta helping you to invest
09:11But you know all of the folks here are trying got that infrastructure
09:15we've got the infrastructure and the intentionality and the checks and balances like I
09:19Tell you I stand here and people will say mayor you're doing a great job
09:23But do even better over here. I walk around with a full set of folks saying yay and but what about over here?
09:29They don't let you get away with you know yesterday's successes. It's about can my business thrive today?
09:35Can my business drive thrive tomorrow?
09:37Can I have an opportunity for my son and daughter and so that keeps us fresh and we have this talent the Atlanta University?
09:45Center
09:46Spellman
09:48Spellman Clark Atlanta, Georgia Tech, Georgia State
09:52I mean we Emory we have talent coming out of our ears other places can't create that kind of localized
09:59Talent and the last thing is we've got the world's busiest airport
10:02We have the third highest concentration of fortune 500 companies that we are encouraging them to
10:07Utilize to be customers of small and medium-sized business now
10:11Yeah, and we've got some great. We've got some great sports coming around. We got the World Cup
10:16We were just talking about we were selected one of those cities. I cannot let you leave though
10:21We're almost out of time, but I cannot let you leave without the one of the most pressing
10:26questions I have
10:28Who are the Hawks gonna pick with their first draft?
10:31Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna ask you to pick who's gonna be president. I just want to know
10:36Who we get Wednesday night? All right, so check this out, man
10:39Do you know that a mayor's dream is to get the first round pick? Yeah
10:44Yeah
10:45We never get that we got the note. We're gonna get the number one pick for the Hawks
10:50Yeah, and man, I am I'm exuberant Atlanta
10:54sports fans of any kind I
10:56Cry when we lose
10:59And I'm tired of crying man, I'm tired of crying you and me both brother you and me cry man
11:04They got back rooms for me to cry in at the stadium. I just be in there
11:08but
11:09This French kid. Yeah
11:12How tall is he seven foot what seven foot everything he's seven something yeah, and he can ball he got handles
11:19He's like winning it. Yeah, Russell Shea, or that's how he says name that man. Let's get him
11:24All right. I need somebody just dunks on people all the time. I like ridiculously
11:29Committed now, you know why my mayor dunking on people's heads man, right? Well mayor Dickens
11:35I want to tell you I appreciate you making this possible making some time for us. We're proud to be in Atlanta
11:39We're bringing this back. Yeah
11:43In the team, thank you