Meet Dr. Angie Arrington of Evolve Consulting

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Angie Arrington.

Hi Dr. Angie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started my first formal business in 1981 in the corner of my living room with a thousand dollars, a donated computer and desk as a single mom while working a full-time job and without a college degree.

Ten years later and after several other start-up businesses, joint ventures, and limited partnerships, I jumped the job track and expanded into my first full-time business, MultiConsultant Associates, Inc.

MCA was an information, management and technology services firm. We provided program development, conferences and event management, technical writing, and call center management services to the federal government, corporations, and public service organizations.

MCA was a certified 8(a) economically disadvantaged Minority Woman-owned Business (MWBE) firm through the Small Business Administration. Because of our quality services, business acumen, and impeccable track record MCA quickly grew to a seven-figure enterprise on word-of-mouth referrals.

In 1998, MCA acquired a graduating 8(a) firm INFOTEQ and merged it into MCA. We became an overnight 40-person, multimillion-dollar enterprise and was named one of the fastest-growing Black woman-owned enterprises in the DMV market by the US Department of Transportation. We served most of the federal agencies including the Small Business Administration and The White House.

By February 1998, we had grossed over $2.5M in revenue and landed a guest appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show featuring ordinary people who had done extraordinary things. Oprah said, “Wow….” when she learned of the amazing growth our company had made given my limited resources and on my ‘bootstrapped’ knowledge, skills, and abilities.

A year later, MCA went belly-up due to an irreconcilable partnership dispute that forced us to dissolve the business and walk away from $7.5M of pending business that was under negotiation.

Needless to say, I was devastated, doomed, depressed, damned, and down-trodden over such a drastic loss overnight. I often wondered what would Oprah say to that?

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The struggles along the way have been enormous. In addition to the untimely MCA business dissolution; personally I was having a failed marriage and divorced the same year. I lost everything; except my soul and zest for life. I knew I had to somehow persevere and use this setback as a setup for a comeback.

After much prayer, tears, and coaching, I found myself picking up the pieces and starting life all over again at age 40. As such, I decided to relocate from DMV to Raleigh, NC to be closer to my extended family as my younger daughter was starting middle school. I needed my family to help me be a single mom again so she could have a good quality of life.

I found part-time work in sales and marketing, teaching, and consulting and I re-enrolled in college at Shaw University. This time I would finally finish a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Management. I completed a four-year degree in two years and four months. After which I completed a Master of Business in Tourism Administration from The George Washington University and subsequently a Doctor of Strategic Leadership with a minor in Global Consulting.

For me, life has been no crystal stare. Yet, I have learned to count my blessings, to remain tenacious by persevering and to never give up on my hopes, dreams, and aspirations. I can still hear my late grandma Hattie saying, “…hard work never killed anyone and you can sleep when you are dead!” This became my impetus to continually reinvent myself.

In the meantime, I had a great 15-year career at Progress / Duke Energy in various leadership, management, and operations roles. These experiences helped me to continue to sharpen my toolkit of knowledge, skills, and abilities. I was able to influence, encourage, and impact so many people internally and externally throughout my tenure.

In 2015, I led a multimillion-dollar process improvement initiative to streamline and integrate the work of several former departments and work processes into a more efficient and effective operating and profitable business model.

Little did I know, this initiative would cost me and most of my department our jobs less than two years later. Once again, I was starting all over; including a second divorce. The good news is I had weathered enough storms and managed my life and finances well enough to pivot, shift, and to evolve.

In late 2017, I founded my 13th business, Evolve Consulting, LLC and only looked back to rinse and repeat those invaluable life lessons learned in order to keep failing forward. Today, I am healthy and holistic as I have learned to find joy and contentment in every circumstance.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Evolve Consulting, LLC?
Evolve Consulting, LLC is a management consulting firm. We specialize in leadership, performance, and operations.

Our mission is to help leaders improve performance by leveraging employee engagement, enhancing team development, and implementing practical performance measures…

Evolve is known for our ability to customize leader and employee assessments to help identify core gaps in leadership, performance, and operations.

We specialize in helping leaders align their employees, business systems, and operations to the companies vision, mission, values, and strategic direction.

What sets us apart from other consulting practices is our three-pronged approach to an integrated service delivery model to include consulting, training, and coaching.

We pride ourselves on our ability to help leaders improve their individual performance as well as the overall performance of their team, their organization, and their service delivery.

Brand wise, we are most proud of our “People + Passion = Performance success equation. We have remarkable success in helping our clients to improve performance in our “90-Days to Amaze” package collaborating to ‘LeaderSHIFT’ mindset, behaviors, and communication. We use a tried and true business model that breeds our business mantra “Work Smarter. Perform Faster. Lead Better..”

Readers should know that our proven track record, past performance, relevant experience, and vast experience positions us to deliver quality services on-time; every time. We are strategic and foresightful in delivering all services with a mark of excellence, a strategic action plan, and with a smile. We can help you save employees, customers, time, and money.

Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
We use lots of resources to help ourselves and our businesses. One unique commitment we make as a business is to practice what we teach. We teach excellence, professionalism, quality, values, and strategy and we exemplify these behaviors in how we operate as an entity as well as in our own leadership development. As the Principal Consultant, I too have coaches and mentors to help me continually improve. My personal mantra is “To serve with love.”

As a life-long learner, I am in some form of knowledge-based development weekly to include reading industry books, articles, and blogs. In addition, I attend workshops, webinars, and training sessions. I also volunteer my time to mentor, coach, and advise other entrepreneurs and leaders.

In the Apps world, we use a client portal (Dubsado); a time management tool (Trello); Google Workspace; Form Swift; and Mixmatch to name a few.

To do my best, I believe that one must first ‘BE.’ One must be authentic, collaborative, transformational, and servant. One must know and be true to thine own self first and foremost. One must also establish life principles and values starting with integrity, work ethic, candor, and most importantly one must be willing to ‘evolve’ by gradually becoming better; then rinse and repeat.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: evolveconsultingllc.com
• Instagram: evolveconsultingllc
• Facebook: evolveconsultingllc
• Youtube: Angie Arrington
• Yelp: Evolve Consulting LLC

Image Credits
Photos by Beverly Tan