Bonita C. Stewart
Investor and Corporate Director
Former Google Vice President and Board Partner, Gradient Ventures
Bonita C. Stewart brings extensive consumer technology and operational experience as her career spans over three decades of digital transformation across multiple industries. Currently, Ms. Stewart serves as an investor and member of the Steering Committee member for the Black Angel Group focused on investing in emerging technology solutions. She most recently worked at Gradient Ventures, Google’s early stage AI venture fund where she spent close to three years as a Board Partner.
After joining Google in 2006 she has risen to lead multi-billion dollar operations and driven adoption of digital technologies within the C-Suite in the US and globally. Prior to Gradient, she spent the last seven years overseeing partnerships for the largest US publishers across search, news, media/entertainment, commerce, and mobile apps. She had oversight for business development P&Ls working alongside legal, policy, compliance, product and finance and reported to the President of Global Partnerships who reports to the Chief Business Officer.
Ms. Stewart was recruited by Google to build the US Automotive vertical into an industry thought leader among 42 automotive brands and became one of four directors chosen to lead sales and operations for the newly created US sectors. She led the Automotive, Finance, Media/Entertainment and Travel sector where she achieved exceptional year over year growth during recessionary times and was promoted to Vice President. It was during this time she proved the efficacy and efficiency of digital. After a successful sales and operations career on the buyside she moved to the Partner Business Solutions team where she built verticals across all industries for the Americas as the operational foundation for the Partnerships team. Over the past several years she has been recognized externally for her leadership as a Woman to Watch (Advertising Age, 2011), Power 100 (Ebony, 2012, 2020), Woman to Watch in Tech (Crain’s NY, 2014), Most Powerful Women (Crain’s NYC, 2017, 2019), Power 300: Most Influential Black Corporate Directors (Savoy, 2016) and Top 100 Black Directors (BoardProspects, 2024)
In 2014 Ms. Stewart was nominated to the Deckers Brands board [NYSE:DECK] and currently chairs the corporate responsibility, sustainability and governance committee and serves as a member of the compensation committee. In 2021 she joined the corporate board of PagerDuty [NYSE:PD] and chairs the Nominating and Governance committee. She served on the Pluralsight board [NASDAQ:PS] from 2018-2021 (acquired by Vista Equity) and Volta Industries board from 2021-2022 (acquired by Shell USA).
Prior to Google, she built her reputation as a business leader who motivates and inspires teams to surpass expectations. She honed her operational skills as a strategic planner adept at creating and implementing effective growth strategies. She served as Director, Chrysler Group Interactive Communications for DaimlerChrysler AG and spearheaded all digital efforts for Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep, including websites, revamping online tools and developing predictive database technology. During the Dot Com era she was recruited back to DaimlerChrysler to lead Chrysler Brand Advertising representing all marketing communications for the $400M budget and 75+ team of internal employees and agency. During her leadership tenure Advertising Age named the Chrysler Group the 2005 Interactive Marketer of the Year and she co-authored “The Fifth P of Marketing,” an article for CRM Magazine. As part of her automotive career Ms. Stewart was responsible for managing the brand development process and $8 billion annual revenue for future and existing Dodge passenger cars and minivans working closely with engineering, manufacturing, finance and dealers. She led the cross-functional coordination of internal and external resources and generated short and long term strategic plans to establish target markets, competitive positioning, product design/features, pricing strategy and promotional incentives.
Ms. Stewart also enjoyed a 10-year management career with IBM in software/hardware pricing, sales and PC product marketing. Additionally, Ms. Stewart has entrepreneurial experience with two businesses. She served as President, COO and co-founder for Nia Enterprises, a web-based company as well as the Founder and CEO for One Moment in Time, a formal wear rental company that was recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine as “one of the hottest” businesses in 1993 and recipient of the 1991 Detroit Monthly “Best of Detroit” Award. In 2012 Root.com named her a Top African American Internet pioneer.
While building her fluency in technology from personal computers to today’s AI based economy she established a reputation of integrity and professionalism. In 2012 and 2013 she received award recognition from the Harvard Business School and Howard University respectively for alumni achievement. Given her love for cultural arts and education, she has served on the following non-profit boards - Detroit Music Hall, Cranbrook Art Academy, Harvard Business School African American Alumni Association, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Harvard Business School of New York City. Her current civic interest includes serving on the Board of Trustees for the Dance Theatre of Harlem where she co-chairs the nominating and governance committee. Additionally, as Google’s first Black woman Vice President she has paved the way for many others in technology. In 2023 she was recognized by Google’s Black Leadership Advisory Group with their inaugural lifetime achievement award.
In 2016 she created the concept for Howard West, a computer science immersion program, powered by Google. She is the co-author of A Blessing: Women of Color Teaming Up to Lead, Empower and Thrive and the annual Women of Color in Business Cross-Generational Survey (2019-2021) www.leadempowerthrive.com. In 2022 she joined the leadership team of the Black Angel Group, an independent angel investing collective organizing the world’s largest group of Black tech operators. Ms. Stewart spent her formative years in Denver, CO and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from Howard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She resides in Englewood, NJ with her husband.
Jacqueline Adams
President, J Adams: Strategic Communications, LLC and Co-author of “A Blessing: Women of Color Teaming Up to Lead, Empower and Thrive”
Jacqueline Adams launched a second career as a communications strategist after more than two decades as an Emmy Award-winning CBS News correspondent. A natural “connector,” she has the unique ability to hear clients’ strategic concerns and find creative solutions, drawing upon her wealth of contacts and experiences in media, business, academic and civic circles.
Through her boutique consulting firm, J Adams: Strategic Communications, LLC, she counsels corporate and non-profit clients. Ms. Adams serves as a senior advisor to the new payment platform for publishers, NICKLPass and is a co-founder of the bespoke training program for rising star managers of color, The Diverse Future.
In 2020, Ms. Adams and her co-author, Bonita C. Stewart, published their book, “A Blessing: Women of Color Teaming Up to Lead, Empower and Thrive.” Ms. Adams and Ms. Stewart have also released three proprietary surveys and anticipate two more, culminating in a longitudinal study of U.S. Women of Color in Business: Cross-Generational Survey©. She has written a bi-monthly column, #TeamUp, for The Christian Science Monitor and is the author of Climate Stories, a series of blog posts for the Harvard Business School Business and Environment Initiative.
Ms. Adams covered the groundbreaking campaigns of Reverend Jesse Jackson for President and Geraldine Ferraro for Vice President before spending five years as a White House correspondent during the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. In the 1990s, she was a prolific contributor to the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and CBS News Sunday Morning. She won a News and Documentary Emmy Award for the 48 Hours broadcast, “The Search for Matthew.”
A graduate of Harvard Business School, Ms. Adams deliberately saves time for a number of non-profit activities. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Business School Club of New York and was among the alumni profiled during the school’s 50th anniversary celebrations of women and African-American students. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.
She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Advisory Committee of the United States Institute of Peace, and the Advisory Council of the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream. She is a patron of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and is beginning a seventh year of studies at the Juilliard School of Music’s Extension Division.
