Kamika Dillard, founder of Black Women Will Save Black Women and creator of the Fail Forward coaching framework, is building a vital platform for Black women navigating career pivots, burnout, layoffs, and reinvention. Her work challenges the long-held narrative that failure is something to be hidden or quietly endured, reframing it instead as a catalyst for strategy, clarity, and long-term power.
With a background in corporate tech and years of experience supporting major brands, Dillard brings both professional insight and lived experience to her mission. After being laid off, she channeled her own transition into creating a space designed not just for reflection, but for action. In a moment where instability across media, corporate leadership, and entrepreneurship has become increasingly common, her perspective feels both timely and necessary.
Black Women Will Save Black Women was created in response to what Dillard observed as a pattern of layoffs and systemic bias disproportionately affecting Black women. Rather than accepting those outcomes as inevitable, she set out to build a structure rooted in care, accountability, and collective progress. The platform focuses on turning moments of disruption into intentional next steps, ensuring that loss becomes a starting point rather than an ending.
At the center of this work is Dillard’s Fail Forward coaching framework, a three-step practice that begins with naming loss honestly, followed by identifying transferable skills, and committing to one small, confidence-building action. This process is reinforced through peer accountability, allowing momentum to become sustainable rather than performative. Her goal is clear: to create a network Black women can rely on, one that prioritizes mentorship, collaboration, and mutual protection. In many ways, it is a reimagining of traditional power networks, designed with Black women at the center.
In the current professional climate, Dillard views the rise in career pivots among Black women as a strategic response rather than a retreat. In media, many face tokenization. In corporate leadership, access to sponsorship and advancement often remains limited. In entrepreneurship, capital gaps and biased gatekeeping persist. Over time, these conditions create emotional exhaustion and stalled growth. As a result, many Black women are choosing to build companies, launch alternative media, and form hiring and mutual aid networks that center their needs. This shift signals a broader redistribution of talent, power, and possibility.
Dillard’s Fail Forward philosophy offers a reframing of layoffs, career pauses, and reinvention, particularly for high-achieving Black women. Each disruption, she explains, reveals skills, relationships, and insights that travel beyond any single role or title. By pairing honest reflection with measurable action and accountability, the framework transforms enforced pauses into long-term gains, financially, professionally, and personally.
She also acknowledges the emotional toll that can come with starting over after years of success. Career loss can feel like an identity rupture, often accompanied by shame and self-doubt. Dillard emphasizes the importance of addressing both the emotional and practical sides of transition. By validating feelings while simultaneously setting small, achievable goals, women are able to move from paralysis to progress. Over time, those incremental steps compound into new careers, businesses, and lifestyles that honor growth beyond traditional definitions of success.
After her own corporate chapter ended, Dillard approached rebuilding with intention and adaptability. Drawing on her strengths in strategy, stakeholder management, and product thinking, she tested ideas through low-risk experiments while maintaining short-term income streams. At the same time, she prioritized restoration, setting boundaries that allowed space for health, family, and clarity. This approach led to more aligned work, sustainable revenue, and a professional life designed to support longevity rather than burnout.
Today, Dillard defines sustainable success as more than a title or paycheck. It is a set of conditions that allow for full participation in life over time. That includes income models that respect boundaries, rhythms that allow for rest, and work that aligns with personal values. Through her coaching, she encourages Black women to establish their own metrics for success, from protected personal time to realistic revenue goals, and to test those priorities through short-term experiments that support both wellbeing and financial stability.
For Black women navigating burnout or uncertainty while feeling pressure to have everything figured out, Dillard’s guidance is grounded and practical. She emphasizes that there is no final plan, only a series of informed adjustments. Naming emotions, taking one brave step forward, and treating rest as a strategic necessity are central to her approach. Each pivot becomes data for the next move, reinforcing that progress does not require perfection, only intention.
Through Black Women Will Save Black Women and the Fail Forward framework, Kamika Dillard is helping reshape how Black women understand failure, success, and power. Her work stands as both a response to systemic barriers and a blueprint for building futures rooted in clarity, care, and collective strength.
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