Rosa Whitaker wants to inspire people not by her 28-room home in Ghana or the 19,000-square-foot mansion she recently sold in Reston, Virginia, but by the choices she made long before wealth ever found her, and the ones she continues to make now, even when no one is paying her to.
Whitaker, who knew struggle at a young age in Washington, D.C., came from a working-class family.
“My father was a mail carrier. My mother was a mail sorter,” she says. “But we struggled.”
“And as a heavyset child, I had my self-esteem battered, but I used to look at Barbara Jordan,” Whitaker said, referencing physical similarities in the late lawyer and former member of Congress for Texas 11th District.
She said she would go to Capitol Hill hearings to be inspired by her. It’s a move that helped fuel her along the way.
That early inspiration propelled Whitaker into one of the most influential women of color operating in the U.S.–Africa business and policy space. She was the first-ever assistant U.S. trade representative for Africa under two former U.S. presidents, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Whitaker also sits on prestigious boards such as the African Export-Import Bank’s Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA) and the U.S.Chamber of Commerce, to name a few.
But there were moments she felt like she didn’t belong in the rooms that she’s now influencing, but she says for young women, it’s a common feeling.
“What I found that was helpful to me was to always have a supportive network of mentors and a community outside of those rooms, because then they will always remind you that you’re not alone,” she told ESSENCE.
Building on her support system has kept her in the fight for the renewal of the Africa Growth Opportunity Act or AGOA. It’s a U.S. trade law enacted in 2000, which expired in September.
It lets African countries sell many goods to the U.S. without paying tariffs, creating billions in economic opportunities across the continent. U.S. companies like Levi’s and Wrangler, among others, rely on AGOA.
Whitaker, who is a retired lobbyist, is now fighting for AGOA without a paycheck. When asked how much money she’s giving up.
“I mean, it cost me well over a million dollars because that’s the kind of [impact of the] lobbying,” she says.
Whitaker says she doesn’t believe working for free devalues her, as she was raised with the principle of giving her time first, and says before anyone would pay her, she had to build her resume through volunteering.
The former lobbyist notes, “I couldn’t do what I do today if I didn’t have money for my other businesses to support me to have the freedom.”
“I’m building businesses in Ghana that I’m absolutely passionate about, and they are targeting the things I care about,” she added. Whitaker will soon launch a fintech company called Umsuka in Ghana to help target the underbanked population.
Whitaker has the ear of African presidents and CEOs, but she says sometimes women misunderstand power and how to navigate spaces.
“I think that power has to be purpose-driven, and a lot of power is strategy-driven. ‘I must know this one,’ ‘I must be in this room.’ It’s like a quest for power and relevancy, she said. “It will elude you if that is your goal. But if you really have a purpose that you want to pursue passionately, it has a way of attracting the right partners.”
Asked what a lie about success women should unlearn, she says, “There is no standard definition for success, and they should define it themselves and not accept the common definitions for success. “I think success is really about becoming and becoming fulfilled and fulfilling destiny.”
Whitaker says women can acquire power by not losing themselves and mastering who they are. She says prayer keeps her grounded, and there isn’t a day that goes by that she doesn’t start her day with prayer.
According to Kendra Gaither, the president of the U.S.-Africa Business Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Whitaker’s offers “invaluable lessons, particularly for young women at the start of their professional journeys who may question the significance of their contributions.”
Gaither also touts Whitaker’s “authenticity” and praises her for her AGOA push, hailing it as a way to deepen “the commercial partnership between Africa and the United States.”
For many women, wealth and success may have many meanings, but for Whitaker, she says, “wealth is doing what you were destined and born to do,” adding for women striving for success, “no one can beat you at doing what you were born to do.”