J. Quenton Cooper/Courtbouillon
Valiesha Butterfield Jones

NEW ORLEANS (April 13, 2018) – The head of the Women in Entertainment Empowerment Network, or WEEN, encouraged students to achieve success by harnessing the power within themselves.

CEO Valeisha Butterfield Jones, who also works for Google as its global head of Women and Black Community Engagement, addressed 100 people in a Brain Food series lecture on March 20 in Georges Auditorium.

Dr. Walter Kimbrough said he wanted students to hear her speak, having become familiar with her work with the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan.

She described how she landed her internship with the group. She said she walked to Peachtree and walked around for five hours before she found the building where the group had offices. By that time, the building was closed. Jones said she cried, but she persevered.

Jones said it’s important to find your passion.

“I needed to understand the business behind music, [so] I took it upon myself to know what was what in the industry,” she said.

Kimbrough asked how connected her to influencers, she recounted volunteering for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. She said she already knew professional basketball player Lebron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, so she asked him to rally supporters in the area, and he agreed. Obama ended up carrying the area in the election, she said.

(Logan Pugh contributed to this report.)