Simms describes the reaction to her presence in meetings as she negotiated $100 million contracts for the Department of Defense:
“They were super confused why I was in every room I was in. The defense industry is male-dominated almost all White and they were very much like ‘Why is this young whippersnapper in the room when she’s not getting me coffee.’ I [learned] early on about how I needed to establish my value in the first five seconds of walking into a room. I can’t be the one woman army to change people or racism, but I would do everything in my power to ensure that they will take me seriously.”
What Simms says she was able to accomplish with Combs Enterprises:
“We built a business that many might have said was failing for five years from a 70 thousand case a year business to a two million case a year business. Puff is extremely hard working and extremely involved in every detail. It’s not a small thing to entrust his empire with me and I never took that for granted.”
Watch the full interview here
