Joy Briscoe

MANAGING PARTNER

Joy Briscoe is an intelligence Air Force Veteran and consummate diversity, equity and inclusion professional with more than 15 years of experience in developing culturally inclusive programming. She is currently a managing partner with Top RANK Talent Solutions, a professional search, development, and consulting firm dedicated to enhancing diverse talent and striving for a culture of inclusive leadership.  In this capacity, she focuses on equity strategies to attract and retain underrepresented talent and  foster business engagement. 

Additionally, Joy serves as the Executive Director for the 24/7 Black Leadership Advancement Consortium, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing economic vitality for Black Communities in the Midwest. As the Executive Director she spearheaded the launch of the only Black-centered Venture School in the state of Iowa, a UNI and University of Iowa John PappaJohn Entrepreneurial Center collaboration.  Also, she was on the team that launched the first Black Business & Entrepreneurship Accelerator for the state, an intentional focus of resources and opportunity to create more access for Black-owned businesses in response to the Pandemic. Additionally, the organization relaunched a critical Housing program to increase the amount of Black Homeowners in the state; host monthly economic empowerment & education sessions; and facilitate a Black career development and advancement curriculum geared towards increasing the amount of Blacks in leadership in the public and private sector.

Prior to joining Top RANK, Joy was the Talent Acquisition and Outreach Specialist for Waterloo Schools where her role was to increase the amount of staff of color, develop Grow Your Own talent programming while also supporting the Waterloo Career Center by increasing work-based learning opportunities with equity and inclusion.  She was a part of a public private partnership to launch a pre-apprenticeship program, entitled “Ignite” to meet workforce shortages and gear students to Iowa Future Ready high needs and skills roles.  A master of innovation and the professional pivot, Joy hosted multiple virtual team building retreats to develop skills to improve communication and teamwork, manage conflict for students while aligning business engagement with activities to organizational vision and values, and leverage diversity.  She also worked for the Cedar Rapids School District, where she was one of an elite group of K-12 Education Diversity Recruiters in the region.

From 2014 to 2018,  Joy led the YWCA of Black Hawk County in its mission to eliminate racism and empower women as the Marketing and Development Director from .  There she was responsible for the first Cedar Valley Stand Against Racism campaign in conjunction with 650 community organizations across 44 states in the United States; as well as revitalizing marketing materials to meet YWCA “On A Mission” national branding campaign.

As the Chief Marketing Officer for her company, Infiniti Enterprises, she launched several initiatives to reduce disparity for underserved populations with entrepreneurship, leadership and innovation.  Her philosophy is the conversation on diversity, inclusion and retention cannot be addressed without a commitment to resources and access.  In this vein, she is the co-founder of  Inclusion Cedar Valley, the Cedar Valley Fashion Art and Culture Expo and the SHIPHT Youth Opportunity Accelerator.  She also currently serves on the board of the Iowa Women’s Foundation, the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa, NewboCo, the House of Hope, is a Black Hawk County Veteran Commissioner, is part of the See What I Mean Strategic Collaboration and a member of the planning teams for EntreFest and the Cedar Valley Economic Inclusion Summit.