Business

Marie Rose of Rose Bud Studios Named Entrepreneur of the Year

The African American Chamber of Commerce named Marie Rose of Rose Bud Studios Entrepreneur of the Year, and my Philadelphia team is learning from her.

By 8 min read
Marie Rose of Rose Bud Studios Named Entrepreneur of the Year

More than 500 business owners, corporate executives, elected officials, entrepreneurs and strategic partners came together on Thursday evening, October 29, 2026, at Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia, on Packer Avenue in the city’s stadium district, for the 33rd Annual Dinner & Awards Ceremony of the African American Chamber of Commerce of PA, NJ & DE. The Chamber listed the hours as six to nine. The Entrepreneur of the Year was Marie Rose, founder and CEO of Rose Bud Studios. I’m Harry Hayman, and my post about her opened in capital letters: VERY PROUD OF THIS ONE. I meant every letter of it. Marie is working with my team at Gemini Strategic Consultants on leadership and professional development, and I’ll tell you what, she is the real deal. This is the longer version of that post: what the Chamber honored, what Marie built, why I decided the whole Gemini team should be coached, and what a night like this says about the city in 2026.

The Chamber, the Dinner and the Award

The African American Chamber of Commerce of PA, NJ & DE, which goes by AACC, keeps its office at 2005 Market Street in Philadelphia. The AACC About page ties its formation in 1993 to a legal challenge by contractors’ associations over discrimination in city contracting, notes that a foundation followed in 2004, and calls the Chamber the leading advocate for minority owned business in the Delaware Valley and Southeastern Pennsylvania. The mission statement is plain: the Chamber drives the growth and success of businesses owned by Black entrepreneurs, recognizing that their advancement fuels stronger economies across the region, the nation and the global marketplace.

The Chamber’s Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony page says the evening celebrated 33 years of continuity, recognized 250 years of Black contribution to America’s economy and looked ahead to a theme, Build What’s Next. It lists six honoree categories: Entrepreneur of the Year, the Vanguard Award, the Chairman’s Award, Business of the Year, Nonprofit of the Year and Corporate Partner of the Year. Under Entrepreneur of the Year, the Chamber’s Entrepreneur of the Year honoree graphic names Marie Rose as Founder & CEO of Rose Bud Studios, with the date, the hours and the venue.

In its note to members and friends on Friday, October 23, the Chamber introduced her in one line: “Congratulations to Marie Rose of Rose Bud Studios, our Entrepreneur of the Year!” Everything below about what Rose Bud Studios is comes from that note or from the company’s own website, and I will say which is which.

Rose Bud Studios, Three Locations and More Than 100 Businesses

Rose Bud Studios LLC is the company Marie built into what the Chamber’s note calls a business development and coworking community with three locations, owned by a Black woman. Coworking, in Wikipedia’s definition, is an arrangement in which workers for different companies, or people who work for themselves, share an office space. Rose Bud offers more than a shared desk. Through office suites, business coaching, virtual services and access to resources, the Chamber says, Marie is helping local entrepreneurs launch, grow and scale.

The Rose Bud Studios contact page lists the three places. The Broad Street location is at 2536 North Broad Street in Philadelphia. The Clearfield location is at 1318 West Clearfield Street, also in Philadelphia. The City Ave location is at 183 City Avenue in Bala Cynwyd, which Wikipedia’s entry on Bala Cynwyd describes as a community in Lower Merion Township that borders the western edge of Philadelphia at City Avenue. That makes two addresses in the city and one just across the city line.

The Rose Bud Studios home page sums up the work in a single line: “Supporting Small Businesses by building community and providing opportunities to network!” The Rose Bud Studios FAQ page gets practical. It describes a daily rental option, and a virtual address and mail service that comes with a professional office address and three daily rentals a month in the meeting space. Asked whether renters pay any additional fees beyond rent, the page answers no, and adds a sentence I would hang on a wall: “Your success is our success.”

I also read the Rose Bud Studios member directory, which opens with the line “The businesses listed in this directory are Rose Bud Members.” It groups the members by trade and tags each one with a location, Broad Street, City Ave or Clearfield, and the trades run from hair care, skin care and massage to home health care, freight transportation and lab services. The Chamber’s note supplies the number: Rose Bud Studios has supported more than 100 businesses and continues to create space for others to thrive. I cannot count that from the outside, so the figure is the Chamber’s, not mine. What the directory shows me is range, a set of trades that have little in common except the community they belong to.

Why Everybody at Gemini Gets Coached: A Note From Harry Hayman

I should say plainly where I stand. I am the chief executive officer of Gemini Strategic Consultants, which calls itself, on its home page, a Philadelphia consulting firm for hospitality, food systems, economic development and the technology underneath them, and says it stays after the first project is done. The Gemini team page gives every person a named job.

Marie has been working with us on leadership and professional development. When we started talking about what that could look like, I decided I did not want to do it just for myself. I wanted the entire Gemini team involved, so that is what we are doing. Everybody gets coached.

Here is my thinking. We tell clients we can help them build better businesses, become better leaders and improve how their organizations operate. If we say that out loud, shouldn’t we put the same effort into our own people? I certainly think so. Selfishly, I can’t wait to see what happens as our own team continues working with Marie. We have plenty of growing to do over here, too.

Chris and the People Behind the Business

We are extending the same opportunity to some of the entrepreneurs we work with, including Chris Goodwin, the founder of Exonerated Movers. The company describes itself as a Philadelphia moving and logistics company built on the belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to move forward, and its Exonerated Movers services page lists moving help for offices and commercial spaces, junk removal and cleanouts, same day courier work, labor and staffing, and property services. I have written about Chris twice, in a September 30 post about his company and in an October 30 post about his hour on The Looking Forward Show. His story is better in his own words than in my summary, so I will send you there.

Here is why I think this matters for Chris and for the other entrepreneurs we are extending it to. You can have a great business plan, a terrific marketing strategy and all the technology in the world, and still struggle if you are not investing in the people responsible for making it all happen. That is something I think we could all do a better job of, myself included. The Chamber said Marie’s company gives entrepreneurs more than a place to work. I read that as the same idea from the other side: the desk is the easy part, and the person sitting at it is the point.

A Philadelphia Line That Runs Back Further Than 2026

The Chamber built the night around 250 years of Black contribution to America’s economy, and in Philadelphia that line runs back to people like James Forten. Wikipedia’s entry on James Forten says he was born free in the city in 1766 and bought the sail loft where he worked in 1798, and that his workers were both Black and white. Pennsylvania’s historical marker for Forten describes him as a wealthy sailmaker who employed craftsmen of more than one race and a leader of the African American community in Philadelphia. Different century, different trade, but the same kind of act: building a business big enough for other people to work inside it.

A year like this one puts a bright light on Philadelphia, and a bright light reveals what is already standing. On Packer Avenue on October 29, what was standing was a room of more than 500 business owners, executives, elected officials and partners, gathered by a Chamber that works across Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, and an entrepreneur whose company has three addresses and, by the Chamber’s count, more than 100 businesses behind it. I think of what Marie built the way I think of a venue or a kitchen, as infrastructure. A desk, a mailing address, a meeting room and a business coach are the ordinary machinery of getting started, and a city that wants its next chapter to be a good one builds that machinery block by block. Build What’s Next was the Chamber’s theme. Marie Rose has been building it in three places.

Marie, congratulations. We are proud to be working with you, excited about what we are learning, and looking forward to seeing where you take Rose Bud Studios next. Entrepreneur of the Year. That is awesome.

Sources and references

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