Natalie Cofield: A Leader for Multicultural Women

Natalie Cofield, a serial entrepreneur, has found inspiration and interest in building a community to inspire underrepresented and women entrepreneurs. Natalie has had an accomplished career. She’s the founder and CEO of Walker’s Legacy, a digital media platform designed to empower and connect a global network of enterprising and professional multicultural women.

Natalie’s entrepreneurial spirit flourished at a very young age. When she was seven, Natalie found inspiration watching her mother, Dr. Melody Cofield, who served as president at a manufacturing and technology company. Dr. Cofield started to assign business plan readings to Natalie when she was 11 years old. It goes without saying that a daughter of a mother who was ever the enterprising risk-taker and a father who teaches international business and entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University, would go on to found her first company by age 26. She served as a management analyst on Wall Street and President & CEO of the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce.

In her current role as the CEO of Walker’s Legacy, Natalie aims to create the digital and in-person community, content and programming needed to help women advance in their careers and entrepreneurial endeavors. The inspiration for Walker’s Legacy— and its name— come from Madam C. J. Walker, the first self-made female millionaire in U.S. history. Natalie often refers to Walker’s biography for both inspiration and business strategy. With a strongly-rooted mission and the skillset needed to execute, Natalie has created an influential community that has changed the lives of many professional multicultural women.

At Tow-Knight, Natalie plans to learn about business models for hybrid media platforms and the tools, technologies and strategies for growing and scaling a digital media company.

In her spare time, Natalie is out exploring the globe. As a solo traveler, she embraces the spontaneity of visiting foreign countries and meeting new friends. In total, she has visited more than 40 countries and has no plans on stopping anytime soon.

[This is part of a series of peer profiles introducing the 2018 class of Tow-Knight Entrepreneurial Journalism fellows at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.]