“You” Matter—I Realized That and It Is Time You Did Too!
Alicia Bowens’s journey is similar to single, working moms out there. Like them, she too is a single mother. Becoming pregnant with her son at fifteen, she did not let that define her. She defied the odds by graduating high school and enrolling in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with her son in tow. After she graduated in 2001, Alicia began working in the IT industry.
A few years later, in 2006, she went on to obtain her MBA and MS Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School. Alicia, now known as a “corpora-preneur,” has many titles. She is an IT professional, speaker, author, life coach, business consultant, and radio host. Her studious and determined nature has motivated her to earn a host of certificates – PMP, CSM, ACP, PBA, and LSSGB.
Her “I am never giving up” attitude combined with her ambitious drive to beat the odds led her to establish two businesses—BE IT LLC, an IT staffing and consulting company, and BE L.O.V.E. LLC, a company with a goal to help teen mom and single mothers find resources, education, and information through coaching, books, and workshops. The motivation behind her company, BE L.O.V.E. LLC, was her realization that not every mother – whether single or married – has the drive to move forward with her life to follow her dreams.
She wanted to equip teen moms and single mothers with knowledge and resources to get up and follow their dreams, which was one of the primary reasons why she decided to become a certified coach, earning her certificate in 2010. She aspired to share her successes and failures with other single and young mothers in the same position as she was at 15.
She wanted to empower them and encourage them to commit to their goals regardless of the obstacles in their way, making them second-guess their decision to move forward with their life. To share her story and beliefs, she created a radio show “The L.O.V.E. Perspective” with a friend who is also her co-host in 2011. Through her radio show, she wants to encourage and inspire all mothers to live Lives Of Vision & Empowerment.
For her efforts in empowering young mothers, she won the 2015 Crown Jewel Award. She is also a 2016 and 2017 BOSS Influencer. She has been a regular guest on several shows, programs, and events where she speaks about career planning, vision boards, entrepreneurship, relationships, and her experiences as a teenage mother and on how she did not let that bring her down.
In addition to this, she is lifetime member of the National Black MBA Association, Chicago Chapter, where she served on the Executive Board and Marketing and Communications Committee from 2006 to 2010 and on several occasions, she has participated in their Leaders of Tomorrow (LOT) program, a program designed to mentor high school students. Other mentoring programs she has been a part of include The Legacy Initiative, Your Time is Now (YTIN), and the Illinois Subsequent Pregnancy Program.