The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), Bank of America, and FORTUNE are proud to announce that they have selected 44 Atlanta-area companies for their annual Inner City Capital Connections (ICCC) program. This year the program received a record-setting 2,700 qualified company nominations from across the country and selected 415 companies for participation. Especially critical in today’s economic climate, ICCC identifies inner city businesses in need of growth capital, educates them on building capacity and accessing capital, and connects them with capital providers in order to grow their businesses and create jobs.
Four of the 44 Atlanta companies appear as guests on today’s show.
Kevin Mobley/The Ian Thomas Group LLC 
Kevin Mobley is a Six Sigma Black Belt with over twenty years of experience creating software systems for Fortune 1000 companies in the entertainment, financial services, government, retail and travel sectors. Kevin Mobley is the Chief Executive Officer of The Ian Thomas Group, LLC (ITG). ITG provides strategic and tactical software performance engineering and deployment services to organizations deploying complex software systems — solving the types of complex performance problems that have recently plagued Healthcare.gov.
The services of The Ian Thomas Group are being leveraged by Bank of America, Capital One and AT&T during the replacement and management of their enterprise software.
Engineering teams led by Mr. Mobley have managed the performance engineering of complex multi‐tier systems of more than 100 customer implementations. Mr. Mobley’s teams have rewritten the core components of software architectures with increases in performance of several by more than 1300%.
Mr. Mobley has a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering from George Mason University and Masters of Science in Systems Engineering from Georgia Tech.
Deidre F. Brown Collins is the Founding Managing Member and CEO of Brown & Pipkins, LLC and its divisions – Acsential, Acsential Technologies, Acsential Services and Acsential Construction. She brings almost 20 years of experience in the management and technical industries. Deidre manages numerous government and commercial clients providing building services, strategy management and information technology.
Deidre holds a BS and MS in Computer Science from Clark Atlanta University. She has successfully completed the Georgia Mentor/Protégé Program where she was mentored by Hardin Construction Company.
She was selected as a 2010 Make Mine Million $ Business awardee sponsored by American Express. A participant in the Women’s Flying High Initiative, she is the recipient of the 2006 Phoenix Trail Blazer Award.
A board member of Metro Atlanta Respite & Developmental Services (MARDS), Inc., Deidre is alumna of United Way Volunteer Improvement Leadership Program (VIP) and Marvin C. Goldstein Project Understanding with the Atlanta American Jewish Committee. Deidre is a member of Women’s Initiative Next Generation (WINGs), Women Impacting Pubic Policy (WIPP) and a life member of the National Council of Negro Women.
Dr. Russell Brown/Avenia Behavioral Management, Inc.
Sanquinetta Dover/Dover Solutions 
Sanquinetta Dover provides over 30 years of professional staffing, training, and project management experience. Over the last 17 years she has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of DoverStaffing, DoverSolutions, and Dover Training Institute. As the visionary and leader, Sanquinetta practices innovative techniques to deliver leading workforce solutions to the human capital management industry. Sanquinetta holds an economics degree from Spelman College and has extensive experience in staffing and training with diverse audiences.
Sanquinetta’s professional achievements have been noted nationally, regionally, and locally. She was recognized as one of the Nation’s Top Business Leaders by DiversityBusiness.com, as well as honored with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Regional Director’s Award. She was featured in The Business Journals from Beginners to Bigshots 2012 segment and was recently quoted in the Atlanta Business Chronicle discussing the skills gap and how the right training can provide a solution to unemployment. Sanquinetta was also named as one of Enterprising Women Magazine’s 2013 Enterprising Women of the Year and the Atlanta Business League’s 100 Women of Influence.
DoverSolutions is a full service, multi-platform consultant agency born from a desire to satisfy the diverse needs of their clients. Complete with project management and executive training capabilities, they are committed to providing workforce innovation to remain ahead of inevitable changes within this global economy. DoverSolutions’ versatility and flexibility enables them to offer proactive solutions that support their clients to sustain a competitive edge while successfully responding to any and all business needs.
