Slutty Vegan founder, Pinky Cole, gifts Clark Atlanta grads LLCs during commencement speech
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Before Graduates of Clark Atlanta University, graduates could are celebrate celebrating having received their college degrees this weekend, but before the ceremony was over, they had even more to celebrate as they became instant business owners, thanks to their commencement speaker, Pinky Cole.
Cole, who founded Slutty Vegan, the popular Atlanta restaurant, spoke during Saturday’s commencement ceremony and gifted each 2022 graduate a limited liability company, an LLC.
Said Cole during her speech, “Every single graduate in this audience will leave this stadium as a business owner.” She went on to say, “On your elevator to success, let me be your maintenance man. I’ve partnered with Varo Bank to provide every single graduate in this audience with an LLC and a path to entrepreneurship.”
With her gift, these new college graduates can pursue their dreams of launching their own businesses. Clark Atlanta’s class of 2022 has more than 800 graduates.
Cole herself is a 2009 graduate of CAU, with a major in mass communication/media studies. She was Miss Clark Atlanta in 2008 and was initiated into Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She began selling vegan burgers on Instagram in July 2018 from her apartment-based business that grew into a food truck. The popularity of the restaurant has allowed Slutty Vegan to go from a food truck operation to several storefront locations since launching its first West End restaurant in October 2018.
Cole shared with the graduates her difficulties and the failures she’s seen in the 13 years since starting her own business then. She added that she wanted the graduates to fail because failure is where they can find inspiration.
Cole told the graduates that if every time they fail, they get back up, eventually they too can be back at Clark Atlanta telling a new group of graduates how to succeed.
Cole’s non-profit, the Pinky Cole Foundation, provides financial literacy and entrepreneurship training.
