Maggie Anderson

Margarita Anderson and her family made history and dominated headlines as national media covered their year-long stand living exclusively off Black businesses, professionals, and products for an entire year. This first-ever real-life case study in self-help economics was called The Empowerment Experiment (EE). Their experiment resulted in a landmark study conducted by Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business which proved with the data from the Anderson’s journey how incremental support of Black businesses can rescue the Black community and improve the American economy as a whole.
Margarita, a first-generation Cuban-American, has a BA in Political Science from Emory University; and earned a Juris Doctor (JD) and Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Chicago, where President Barack Obama was her law professor and mentor. Before the experiment, she was an aide to civil rights icon, Congressman John Lewis, the speechwriter for the Mayor of Atlanta, a strategy executive at McDonald’s Corporation, and a strategy consultant..

Since the experiment, Margarita has become the face of a conscious consumerism movement uniting consumers, corporations, and the quality Black businesses that can rescue struggling communities and provide role models to Black youth. A sought-after speaker, she tours the country inspiring more consumer and corporate engagement of Black professionals and firms. Margarita appears on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS Newshour, and CBS Morning News, among many other national television and radio shows$and uses her growing platform to increase awareness about economic inequalities that starve Black neighborhoods and deny Black businesses, and how proactive support of Black businesses can create jobs and curb crime in America.

Maggie lives in Oak Park, Illinois with her husband John (AB, Economics, Harvard University, 1993; MBA, Finance, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, 1999) and their daughters, Cori and Cara.