Nicole Ari Parker has heard no before. Years on stage and screen taught her how to take a rejection and keep moving, so when she started building Gymwrap, her own activewear company, she walked into investor rooms ready for it.
What she wasn’t ready for was what came with the no. Speaking on a Milken Institute panel about the feminization of wealth, Nicole put it plainly: “As an actor, I kind of had a tough skin, being told no all the time. So when I started my business, I was entering these rooms to get investors, so I was ready for no. But what I wasn’t ready for was being judged on gender and race so obviously. And the lack of support or belief that was there.”
The product wasn’t the problem. “My product was great. It was a great product. It should’ve had lots of funding,” she said. The problem was a room built to see her wrong before she said a word.
That gap between what a founder has actually built and what a room is willing to see is the exact space LIFT ALL exists to close. Financial literacy is not just about reading a balance sheet. It’s about walking into a room already understanding the rules that were built without you in mind, and having the capital, the network, and the language to hold your ground anyway.
Nicole didn’t leave that room. She built anyway, and now she’s using the same platform that once judged her to say clearly what needs to change. That’s the whole shape of LIFT ALL: naming the barrier honestly, then building the pathway around it.
