High school students from diversity backgrounds are rarely given the opportunity to learn about and pursue a career in business. Too often, these teenagers look to professional athletes and movie stars as role models instead of business leaders within their own communities. In addition, companies struggle to build healthy pipelines of diverse talent who can transition seamlessly from student to corporate culture with a deep understanding of business and finance.

Youth About Business enables high school students from all backgrounds to experience the world of business in a stimulating and interactive environment and gain access to positive role models in the world of business and finance. As a result, YAB’s students escape the cycle of "hopelessness" that occurs far too often in communities across America.

Youth About Business (YAB) was founded as a project of Creating an Environment of Success (CES), a Tennessee based 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation in 1992. After 17 years, program founder, Sam Kirk, decided to leave the corporate sector in order to create one of the most innovative leadership training programs to help expose young people to options in business and industry.

The program began with only seven student participants as an entrepreneurial training program to prepare students with all the mechanics of how to successfully run a business. Sam Kirk realized the importance of "Preparing Tomorrow's Leaders Today". Sam's dedication to Youth About Business eventually led to the development of its cornerstone program, the Youth About Business Summer Business Camp in 1999. The Summer Business Camp became coined as the method to teach students about the world of business "One Merger and Acquisition at a Time."

The Summer Business Camp has become the national component that serves as the entry point into Youth About Business. YAB currently operates in Tennessee, New York, Illinois, Georgia and Texas – target markets for expansion include the Western and Mid-Atlantic regions. Since the founding of Youth About Business, more than 7,000 students have participated in one or more of its educational components. The organization's student participants have a 98% graduation rate.

Our mission is to expose youth to business theory and principles through our experiential learning model. The Youth About Business program's 3 main goals
are to:

• increase high school graduation rates and college enrollment
• increase business and financial literacy among youth
• increase qualified diversity candidates for the workforce

Watch our Overview Video to learn more about the program.