Kelly LaPierre started BasBlue’s Future Leaders Club to support rising female entrepreneurs in the same place she once was: entering the business world as a young woman trying to carve out a niche.
After a successful first year helping 20 emerging entrepreneurs and professionals, the leaders club will open applications for its second fall cohort on Aug. 21. The leaders club serves women and non-binary individuals from ages 18 to 26 through two tracks focused on entrepreneurship and career development.
The program runs under BasBlue, a Detroit-based nonprofit that aims to create a more equitable future for women across Southeast Michigan.
LaPierre, the future leaders club’s founding director, has nearly 20 years of entrepreneurial experience, from her start as a corporate business analyst, to graduating with her Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, before returning to Michigan to work across a range of Detroit Metro area startups.
After conducting listening sessions, the first cohort started last fall, followed by a spring expansion with two different tracks: adventure builders and career explorers.
The fall fellowship is focused on entrepreneurial curiosity, introducing women to Detroit innovation spaces and helping them build connections. In the spring, fellows will either focus on their goals as a founder or as a professional seeking to enter startup companies.
After opening on Aug. 21, applications for the future leaders club fall cohort will close on Sept. 11, with the program set to start on Sept. 29.
LaPierre spoke to The Detroit News about supporting young entrepreneurs, the Detroit startup space and how the future leaders club has been supporting women. Some answers have been edited lightly for brevity and clarity.
Question: Why did BasBlue see a need for these programs in the first place? Tell me about the the history, how you guys got this started.
Answer: This is an expansion of a program we had been doing with high school in terms of serving this post-college demographic. … I think a big theme that I heard a lot of these women say was that they don’t have it all figured out yet and they want a place where they can go and explore what entrepreneurship and leadership looks like without having it all figured out yet.
And so that was the genesis for how we built out our Future Leaders Club programming. We launched our fall fellowship in September of 2025, and then we expanded into two spring programs, which is our adventure builders and career explorers.
Q: What’s the difference in the programming for each group? What does that look like?
A: At a high level, Future Leaders Club is about helping these young women and non-binary individuals who are 18 to 26 explore entrepreneurship, and what we found was that a lot of these women were what I have called “entrepreneurial curious” … there’s a lot of great programs in the ecosystem for someone once they have a business idea, right? Or they’ve self-identified of wanting to start a company.
But this population we’re serving are both younger in age as well as younger in their entrepreneurial journey, where they might not even yet consider themselves as an entrepreneur. Our fall fellowship is really rooted in that sort of entrepreneurial curiosity. It’s focused on two main things, which is first, exposure. So, introducing the women as part of the fellowship to the various Detroit innovation spaces, like New Lab, Tech Town, Philology, Bamboo, allowing them to participate in some of the existing events like Black Tech Saturdays, summits, or Michigan Tech Week, as well as facilitating that second tier of connection, which is helping them build meaningful mentor relationships by matching them with a mentor and having a cohort-based learning experience and workshops and sort of intimate conversations with founders where they can learn from people doing this first hand.
Then we expanded in the spring into two tracks based off of individual interest. So the career explorers program is for those women who are interested in exploring careers at startups. This is something that’s very important and to me and something that I’m passionate about because I think it’s another sort of key differentiator from other programs, which is that not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur or start a company, and that’s okay. Every startup needs exceptional talent to grow their business and that’s a gap that we can fill. … Ultimately, the result of that program is matching them with paid internships at female-founded startup companies that align with the fellow’s interests to help them have that hands-on learning experience about what it what it’s actually like to work within a startup company. And then our venture builders program in the spring is for those aspiring founders.
So, those people who have decided that they want to start a company and as part of that program we’ll have helping them test and refine their business ideas. So, helping them validate it, build an understanding of like financial and legal operational components, practice telling their story, and then really develop the action concrete action steps, action plan of next steps as part of that third program.
Q: From your experiences working with these young women, what have you seen them get out of the experience so far?
A: I think without a doubt the biggest change I’d say that I’ve seen in the women is in their confidence. … Both physically, the demeanor and the way they show up into rooms, but also the way that they have confidence to explore and apply for opportunities that they might not have prior. We’ve had fellows even tell us or post on their LinkedIn that after our program, they now recognize that they belong in in these entrepreneurial, innovative spaces. … There’s obviously also, of course, tangible things in terms of expanding their professional networks and connecting them with mentors who will support them, internship opportunities for our career explorers, but ultimately hopefully helping them get that clarity about what’s next for them in their careers. … I think an outcome that I didn’t necessarily originally plan for but it’s something that I’m very proud of is in how the fellows are supporting each other … they have become each other’s biggest supporters. I’ve seen fellows hiring each other and attending each other’s events and introducing them to different different opportunities and celebrating each other’s successes and that sort of peer support and relationship is something that I think is going to be really impactful.
Q: How does the application process work?
A: They all are independent programs that you have to apply to separately, but you can participate in more than one program. … On August 21, we’ll be opening up applications for the fall program, which will start September 29. … I think we’ll continue to offer one-off events that allow people who maybe don’t want to apply for the full program (to) still get some exposure and build these valuable skill sets.
Q: And for the programs… how is that usually structured?
A: Each one is different, but there’s a series of workshops … it could be personal branding and storytelling or … from idea to action business basics, entrepreneurial mindset. So, we have a variety of concrete workshops that they attend as part of the fellowship, and then we also have these sessions that I call “spark sessions” which allows the cohort to just meet and participate in a series of reflection activities that help them apply those lessons to their personal leadership development plan and build connections and help each other out and brainstorm solutions to something that might be coming up in their personal life or professional life. Then there are these field trips we do in terms of getting exposure and taking advantage of all the great resources that exist in the Detroit ecosystem. Then there’s, depending on the program, mentorship matching, essentially speed dating-type activity that helps the the fellows identify who they might want to work with going forward as part of the program and then there’s a series of mentor meetings that happen.
Q: How has your extensive entrepreneurial background influenced the way that you’ve been mentoring these women?
A: I see my role in what I do and what I get joy in is helping create conditions for others to succeed. And so I’m able to design these meaningful experiences by tapping into my own relationships within this broader Detroit ecosystem to bring people together, to share stories, and help each other, and ultimately take advantage of all the great existing programs in Detroit as well in giving the young women exposure to what already exists here in Detroit that they may not be aware of.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add about this program and what you’re looking forward to in the coming months and years?
A: A way in which I designed this program was centered around relationships because I think as much value as you can have through the workshop content and materials, ultimately what’s going to help impact these young women’s lives are the relationships that we’re building as part of this program. So that’s the mentor relationships, the peer relationships, the founder relationships. I think that those relationships and knowing that you have people who believe in you is ultimately what helps the young women who participate in our program be able to see what’s possible and imagine a bigger future for themselves, whether that be in starting their own company or joining an existing company or doing something else entirely and that’s a big kind of goal and motivation behind how I designed and built this program.
lcibulskis@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Q&A: BasBlue program leader on supporting rising female entrepreneurs
Reporting by Laine Cibulskis, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Laine Cibulskis, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
