Jessica Sanon grew up in Boston speaking Haitian Creole, struggling with English as a second language. But math always spoke to her. “It was my universal language—my teacher was able to give me a problem, and I was able to solve it.”
FEATURE | FALL 2025
Engine of Enterprise
A whiz in high school, she nevertheless found herself ill prepared for courses when she arrived at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Out of that experience came a passion for helping young BIPOC women like her succeed in math and science.
“It’s great partnering with nonprofit organizations and schools, but the brand that’s associated with it when parents sign up is the school, it’s not necessarily sySTEMic,” she tells a group of Suffolk students huddled over laptops in a classroom at the Sawyer Business School’s Center for Entrepreneurship this past spring.
Team leader Alden Leso, MBA ’25, nods his head in agreement. “So we need to have more of a focus on parents and students on the first page of the website,” he says. “For someone who stumbles upon the website, that first impression is really important—they need to know what you’re all about and what you are selling.”
During the half-hour meeting, Leso and other students walk Sanon through search engine optimization to drive more organic traffic to her website, help her fine-tune her financials in QuickBooks accounting software, and weigh the pros and cons of a business-to-business (B2B) versus a business-to-consumer (B2C) strategy.
Sanon is one of several business owners availing themselves tonight of the services of SEED—the Suffolk Entrepreneurship and Educational Development Collaborative. SEED’s mission is both ambitious and straightforward: harness the combined expertise and energy of Suffolk faculty, alumni professionals, and talented students to help underserved businesses thrive by providing their founders with a full range of customized consulting services, including guidance on accounting, resource acquisition, and marketing. That mission echoes the University’s own: provide students with the kind of real-world learning opportunities that prepare them well for successful careers while also creating positive community impact.
Tonight the center is a buzzing hive of activity, as students and faculty in multiple rooms pore over the challenges and opportunities for more than a half-dozen local businesses, most of them owned by women and people of color. Over the course of the night, students sit in on a Zoom lecture by Accounting Professor Dat Le, BSBA ’12, MSA ’13, who teaches them a six-digit accounting system for QuickBooks, where each account is assigned a unique code, enabling the students to better track the assets and liabilities of Crown Legends, a Boston hat-and-apparel store. “This is how you get from a good accountant to a great accountant,” says Le, a founding partner of Motta Financial, an accounting firm with branches in Boston and Las Vegas.
BY MICHAEL BLANDING
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Eight years ago, she created sySTEMic flow, a for-profit social enterprise that teaches crucial preparation skills to middle and high school girls, at the same time exposing them to “sheroes” working in science and technology fields to give them role models for success.
Yet despite teaching hundreds of girls through contracts with Boston Public Schools, Sanon knew she had to scale her business up in order to hire part-time staff and increase her profits. She’d begun to explore marketing her services directly to parents, perhaps distributing STEM learning kits nationally, but needed to determine whether this made sense financially.
“The ideas are the seed, but the success is really in the preparation of the ground. It doesn’t matter how good your ideas are; they are not going to grow unless the earth is prepared.”
In a small conference room, Resource Acquisition Clinic Director Ken Mooney, MBA ’80, meets with another team of students trying to wrap their heads around the complicated business strategy of Anawan Studios, a film company that produces both narrative and commercial work.
“There are two types of no-cost providers of business services,” says Chaim Letwin, professor of management and entrepreneurship at the Business School. The first offers a specific service, such as marketing or accounting, divorced from other elements of the company—which means “nobody has sat down with the business and deeply thought through both what they should do first and how it connects to other areas of the business,” Letwin says. The second is a traditional consultant who offers comprehensive advisory services, but without hands-on support to accomplish the task. “They say, ‘Here’s a bunch of things you should do—now come back and tell me when you’ve done them.’”
The SEED team envisioned a model that would combine the two, providing not only comprehensive advice but also the technical expertise to make it happen.
A unique clinical model
SEED traces its roots to a November 2023 roundtable in which Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey challenged leaders to do more to support local businesses, especially underserved ones that lack easy access to capital and support.
Sitting in the audience, Suffolk President Marisa Kelly realized that, in many ways, Suffolk was perfectly poised to meet that call. Located a stone’s throw from the business district and centers of government, Suffolk also has a long history of providing a leg up for first-generation college students from underserved communities. “What’s Suffolk about? Access and opportunity,” Letwin says. “That’s in our DNA—it’s a culture everyone understands.”
Kelly reached out to Chief Operating Officer Boris Lazic, who in turn reached out to Letwin, and the two became co-leaders for the program. “The reason this is going to be successful at Suffolk is because this is who we are,” says Lazic, who sees parallels between the culture of Suffolk and the scrappiness of small business owners. “Nothing comes easy. You work through it, you fight through it, and that’s the beauty of it. Successful businesses are the ones that have stamina and persistence and grit.”
The inaugural program this past spring featured both undergraduate and graduate students from the Business School as well as from the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS). “We have a lot of underserved businesses in Massachusetts, and also a massive amount of talent at the University craving to do real stuff, so we started thinking about how to bring those together,” Letwin says.
Day-to-day operations are handled by SEED Clinic Director Nick Vadala, BSBA ’82, MBA ’86, a double Ram and self-made businessman whose grandparents emigrated from Sicily and who was the first in his family to go to college. Over the past 30 years, he’s held C-suite positions in service and technology companies ranging from start-ups to billion-dollar firms. “I’ve had to deal with a lot of tough problems over the years,” he says. “I know what it’s like to be an underdog, a smaller business competing in the bigger world.”
Suffolk has a long tradition of hands-on clinics that combine academic instruction with real-world work in entrepreneurship, consulting, immigrant justice, juvenile defense, family advocacy, and many other areas. SEED is different in reaching across all functions of a business. “Even when you do an experiential learning project, it tends to be siloed,” Letwin says, in ways where “a student doesn’t understand how the marketing budget is affected by strategy or related to accounting or legal.”
SEED is set up around several distinct clinics, one focused on accounting, led by Le; another that examines strategy and resource acquisition, led by Mooney; another on general consulting, led by Vadala; and others that examine marketing, PR, and advertising, led by Christopher Hill. While students are assigned to one clinic primarily, they also serve on teams with other students involved with the same client company. “If you aspire to be a CEO or other leader someday, you need to be able to connect the dots and understand how all these things work together,” Vadala says. “Students who know how to do that are going to excel.”
One of them is Anawan Studios, founded by Rui Lopes, a self-taught filmmaker from Cape Verde who grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts, and launched his studio nine years ago. In 2022, the company produced a three-part crime-thriller series shot in Massachusetts called Vindicta and is currently looking for distribution. “Ultimately, our long-term vision is to create and develop narrative projects, whether that’s documentaries, short films, or feature films,” Lopes says. At the same time, Anawan Studios provides commercial work to clients to “keep the lights on,” and the company has been trying to remedy an uneven work pipeline.
Lopes says market research Suffolk students have provided is proving invaluable in meeting those challenges. “I realized that the $100,000 is great, but we stand to be able to get a lot more out of this,” he says. The SEED team has identified ways to advertise for new clients based on the company’s unique perspective as creators of color, rather than relying on word of mouth, as Anawan had been doing. “The students have been amazing in focusing on our short-term goals of raising capital and strengthening customer acquisition, which we have been weak on,” Lopes says.
“I’ve learned a lot about how to handle clients and communicate with them in an efficient way,” santiago says. “It’s made me more confident in myself that I have the skills to go into a business role in a future career.”
Along with Anawan, she’s also helped provide accounting aid to Rosita’s Cocina, a Mexican eatery started by fellow Suffolk student Rosa Garza. Originally from Mexico, Garza started cooking when she was laid off from her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and began running a food truck that served up empanadas and chilaquiles at the farmers market in Newburyport, Massachusetts. As word spread, lines began forming for her spicy delicacies, and Garza began offering cooking classes. Eventually she signed a lease on a brick-and-mortar spot nearby and dreamed of selling packaged food as well.
Along the way she began taking business classes at a community college and then enrolled in the marketing program at Suffolk to learn how to run a business. “I never had the resources to go to college before,” says Garza. “It’s awesome because in some of my classes at Suffolk, the professor will ask me, ‘What did you do with your budget?’ or ‘How did you hire staff?’” At the same time, she had little time or money to hire an accountant to get her books in order, which is where SEED comes in.
On a recent Thursday, she stood in her restaurant, which opened this March, proudly showing off a vibrant mural of her heroine, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, and a cooler with her signature sauces, including habanero crema and avocado lime. “The restaurant was one of the biggest, hardest things in my life,” Garza says. “I jumped in so deep, and when I thought about falling back, I was already in too far.” For months she was spending hours cooking and transporting her food to sell at the farmers market, at the same time commuting to Boston to take classes at Suffolk and supervising the build-out of the restaurant, installing components like a fire-suppression system and an industrial kitchen hood that had to be lifted down through a skylight. In the midst of the craziness, she barely had time to keep on top of her finances.
This fall, SEED has already launched a new roster of clients and brought on an additional faculty leader, Christopher Hill, a lecturer in the Advertising and Public Relations Program and founder and past CEO of several companies. Hill’s marketing clinic includes “all the obvious questions—about knowing your audience and understanding their unmet needs and how to communicate with them,” he says. “At the same time, it will include basic elements of communication, which are so important.”
As a former CEO himself, Hill knows how valuable it can be to have that kind of real-world experience while still in college. “From a hiring manager’s perspective, when I meet somebody who’s had live client experiences, it makes a big difference in my decision to hire them,” he says. “Success is really about working with teams and understanding how to integrate with a client’s environment to help them achieve what they need.”
In the end, that’s exactly what SEED provides—practical, hands-on services that give clients what they need to excel, whether that means re-envisioning a long-term business strategy or setting up accounting software. At the same time, it gives students real-life exposure to what consulting really looks like—not only the rewards that come when they can help entrepreneurs climb a step closer to their dreams, but also the knowledge that their work can have a true impact on their community’s future.
SEED Class of SPRING 2025
Anawan Studios
Crown Legends
Future Masters Chess Academy
Keren Kezia Beauty
Little Cocoa Bean Co.
PYNRS Performance Streetwear
Rosita’s Cocina
SySTEMic Flow
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To donate, volunteer, become a SEED partner, or inquire about becoming a SEED client, please visit: suffolk.edu/giving/seed
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Seventy students, including Kincaid Holmes (left) and Alden Leso, have already served as SEED scholars, consulting with Boston-area small businesses.
SEED scholars Rex Yip (left) and Min M. Park (right) meet with Al Objio, co-owner of the Boston hat and apparel store Crown Legends.
What sets SEED apart, says Suffolk’s Chief Operating Officer and SEED co-founder Boris Lazic (left, with SEED client Lawyer Times, right) is that it offers small businesses both comprehensive advisory services and the hands-on support needed to turn strategy into action.
The SEED Leadership team—including Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship Chaim Letwen (left, with Renee King of the Jrue and Lauren Holiday Social Impact Fund)—has decades of experience in building and running businesses.
A variety of challenges
This past spring, SEED partnered with eight companies from a diverse set of industries, including fashion, education, and food. Five of them came through the Boston Creator Incubator + Accelerator, co-founded by Boston Celtics stars Jaylen Brown and Jrue Holiday shortly after their team won the 2024 NBA championship.
Brown, Holiday (who was awarded the NBA’s Social Justice Champion Award in May and now plays for the Portland Trail Blazers), and his wife, former professional soccer player Lauren Holiday, share a commitment to closing the racial wealth gap. They have launched nonprofits, Boston XChange and JLH Social Impact Fund, respectively, that underwrite the Creator Incubator, providing underrepresented creators and entrepreneurs $100,000 along with tailored business consulting.
Brown saw Suffolk as a natural partner in the effort. “Together, we’re showing that collective investment—when intentional, well structured, and rooted in the needs of underrepresented and underinvested communities—has the power to drive true systemic change,” Brown says.
In their meeting with Resource Acquisition Clinic Director Ken Mooney, students discuss other issues involved with the company as well. “To be honest, they have very high costs right now with contractors and rent,” says accounting major Lia Santiago, Class of 2027. “I think they should work on cutting down.” If they are really going to be competitive, she adds, they should up their rates to reflect the true cost of their services, rather than taking on projects and hoping they’ll be profitable.
Mooney throws out other ideas—Could Anawan buy some essential pieces of equipment, rather than renting, perhaps taking on a Small Business Administration loan to finance the purchase? Could they set up a better project-management system that would more accurately estimate costs to set more accurate rates?—all of which would go into a pricing model students would present to the firm.
Santiago was born in the Dominican Republic, grew up in Boston, and now commutes to Suffolk from Hyde Park. Inspired by her parents, who studied administration back in their home country, Santiago was excited to join SEED both to apply her accounting skills in a real-life situation and help small businesses succeed.
When Santiago first got in touch with Garza, “she was so overwhelmed with her business,” Santiago remembers. “When I sat down with her, she didn’t really understand how accounting worked.” Santiago helped organize her QuickBooks, setting up a chart of accounts and recategorizing transactions, explaining how to record expenses. “Once she started to understand more, it really saved her a lot of time, and she was really appreciative of the work I did,” Santiago says. The chance to use her accounting and other skills in such a meaningful way is, she adds, “the whole point of why I’m in school. I was very grateful to be able to give her that help, and it gives me hope I will be able to do this professionally one day.”
It’s not only Suffolk students and small businesses that stand to benefit from the SEED program. The city of Boston will also prosper based on the program’s support of underserved companies...
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Urban Impact
The view from City Hall: SEED is just what Boston needs
Urban Impact
The view from City Hall: SEED is just what Boston needs
It’s not only Suffolk students and small businesses that stand to benefit from the SEED program. The city of Boston will also prosper based on the program’s support of underserved companies, says Segun Idowu, chief of economic opportunity and inclusion for the Wu administration.
“We serve 18,000 small businesses that employ 127,000 people and generate $28 billion," Idowu says. But many of those businesses need more support. Idowu and his team have referred a number of small businesses to SEED, including sySTEMic flow and Keren Kezia Beauty, to benefit from the program’s comprehensive services.
“I’ve appreciated the thoughtfulness with which they’ve designed this,” Idowu says. “One thing I’ve always heard from our members with other accelerator programs is they’d leave with a plan, but not the tools to implement it. The difference here is that they’re not only getting told how to do the thing, but they are also getting the resources and support to execute.”
Idowu says Suffolk, for a host of reasons, is the ideal university with which to partner on such a program. “Suffolk is ours. It’s based here, just a stone’s throw from City Hall, and Suffolk alums have transformed the landscape of not only the city and the Commonwealth, but the whole region,” he says. “The way Suffolk has been a leader in supporting Boston neighborhoods and businesses, it just felt natural to partner with them in the way we have.”
Idowu encourages other Suffolk alums to follow SEED’s lead, leveraging their own resources and positions to help local underserved businesses thrive. “Alums are board members in law firms and banks and real estate companies,” he says. “If a business needs capital, let’s connect them to your bank and provide terms that work for everybody. If you’re a developer or broker, let’s help them find space. If you’re a purchaser, let’s leverage your procurement dollars.” Plant a seed, he urges, and watch it grow. —Michael Blanding
In another room, guest lecturer Owen Jenkins, a consulting professional originally from London, walks students through the delicate art of communication with clients—which, he says, is every bit as important as any strategy or data analysis they provide. “What are you really doing in a consulting gig? You are selling ideas,” he tells them.
ready for the real world
As gratifying as the experience has been for students at times, participating in SEED hasn’t always been easy. Just as in the professional world, there have been occasional difficulties in communicating with clients, including situations in which busy business owners have not provided information students need for their analyses. “In the classroom, everything seems so simple. There’s this process, and everything flows so well,” says finance major Grace Walsh, BSBA ’25, one of the student team leaders. “But that’s not really representative of what it’s like to actually work in consulting,” she adds. Sometimes things go south, “and I think the clinic is teaching us how to deal with that.”
Attorney Beth DiRusso, JD ’92, who has been assisting Vadala in advising students, is impressed by the practical approach students have taken when they’ve encountered roadblocks. “Instead of throwing their hands up in the air and saying, ‘I can’t do my final project,’” says DiRusso, who serves as an outside general counsel to numerous companies, “they’ve gotten creative about doing research and financial modeling.”
At the end of the day, says Walsh, SEED’s emphasis has always been on providing concrete deliverables for the companies. “Sometimes consulting can be used as a kind of excuse,” she says. “A company has already decided they are going to lay off 50% of their workforce, but they hire McKinsey to tell them they should do it, right? But we’re working with companies who need to understand where they are and what their next action should be. Our value is in providing things they can actually go out and do.”
Crown Legends Suffolk students provided owners Al Objio (left) and Manny Gonzalez (right) with detailed accounting, payroll, and tax compliance guidance for their apparel store.
Five of the businesses in SEED’s first cohort came through the Boston Creator Incubator + Accelerator, co-founded by Boston Celtics stars Jaylen Brown (above) and Jrue Holiday (now with the Portland Trail Blazers).
Anawan studios Suffolk students provided filmmaker Rui Lopes with marketing and branding recommendations as well as models for project profitability.
Rosita's Cocina Suffolk students built QuickBooks infrastructure to help restaurant owner Rosa Garza with accounting management.
Even with the best clients, students have learned that serving as an outside consultant is a delicate dance: While it’s their job to analyze the data and present advice on next steps, the client ultimately decides what to do. That’s the case for Leso, who has been working as team lead with Jessica Sanon at sySTEMic flow. “She has been fantastic in terms of a client,” Leso says, “proactive and communicative, and willing to share information with us freely. We are all on the same team and working toward the same objective.”
Based on their analysis, he and fellow students favored a B2B strategy for Sanon’s business, rather than a B2C strategy of working directly with parents and students. At the same time, Leso respects Sanon’s commitment to developing that direct pipeline to students and branding her services under her business name. “If she feels based on her books that B2C is the better way to go,” Leso says, “that’s what she should do.”
Leso, who is originally from Rhode Island, has firsthand experience with running a small business himself, having previously co-founded a nonprofit company to clean public spaces and disadvantaged neighborhoods. Putting himself in his clients’ shoes has helped him fine-tune his bedside manner. “I try to treat clients with respect and friendliness, making them feel like this is a social interaction first and foremost,” he says. “The business comes a lot easier when the vibes are right.”
Knowing that the future of a business is in the balance depending on the decisions they make ups the stakes beyond anything else Leso has done at Suffolk. “It’s one thing to theorize and talk about it in the classroom; it’s something entirely different to have a real-life client with real-life business concerns,” he says. “It’s equal parts exciting and intimidating—because the pressure is on, this is their livelihood, this needs to be as well thought-out and considerate as possible.”
Overseeing SEED’s day-to-day operations is Nick Vadala, BSBA ’82, MBA ’86 (left), who has held C-suite positions in service and technology companies ranging from startups to billion-dollar firms.
“SEED is really great in building student confidence, especially when it comes to engaging with clients and developing presentation skills,” says Grace Walsh (center), with fellow SEED scholars Lia Santiago, Bulent Efe Birgun, Andoreni Erazo Bustos, and Sankalp Patel.
SySTEMic flow photography courtesy of Annette Grant Photography and Jessica Sanon. Jaylen Brown photography courtesy of 7uice Foundation and Boston XChange. Rosita’s Cocina, Future Masters Chess Academy, and Crown Legends photography courtesy of Adam DeTour. Anawan Studios photography courtesy of Justin Styvly and Bruno Ortet. All other feature photography courtesy of Michael J. Clarke.