Meet Malik Gould | Serial Entrepreneur, Author, & Philanthropist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Malik Gould and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Malik, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I always wanted to be in business for myself. I have a degree in International Business with a dual concentration in Entrepreneurship & Marketing. I even started a side business in college that targeted students. I had a plan that I was going to learn on someone else’s dollar first going corporate, then become a full time entrepreneur.. However things didn’t go as planned. I was devastated when Toyota didn’t hire me after I made it through all the interviewing rounds fresh out of college, and had to settle for a job that fired me for something I was 0% responsible for. I was caught up in my bosses bs and his team was fired, which let me know that God wanted me to start sooner than I had expected.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I always say I was forced to be an entrepreneur. I couldn’t get a job. Even with an expensive degree, when you come such a long way you can be as smart and ambitious as you want to be, but it’s hard to hide where you came from. I would ask recruiters after being flown out to so many competitive interview sessions, what did I do wrong? They were annoyed, and I was told things like I was just over the top. After many devastating let downs, I figured I just didn’t fit the corporate culture. I never wanted to code switch for a living anyway, I was losing myself and who I was daily.

I raised myself without a family in North Philadelphia out of foster care, spent 6 years in a boarding school, and lived on my own as a declared independent minor all while managing to graduate high school as valedictorian with a 3.87 GPA. I knew my drive was my strength I just didn’t know much about corporate culture, and I didn’t speak the “langauge” fluently enough. I was a little rough around the edges although I said all the right things. They could simply tell. I just had raw ambition and a bulldog tenacity to succeed with or without them. And to be quite honest, that didn’t translate in the professional setting the way I figured it would. Now that I have an overhead perspective, I personally feel like they were a little intimidated by my drive that I would never settle as an employee.

So I set out with a chip on my shoulders as an independent car dealer while in college, to owning my own small dealership after graduation, that grew into a one stop shop concierge service in Atlanta that offers luxury property and exotic car rentals. In addition, I’m an aspiring author looking to release my first book in 2024, an autobiography of my lifetime of trials and tribulations of early childhood abandonment and rehabilitation called “Eighties Baby”, that I will convert into a 7 season series tv show as well as a series of movies. Lastly, I founded a summer camp for under privileged children called the Junior HBCU Summer Academy where I’m pipelining inner city youth directly to HBCU campuses instead of the juvenile system. This I believe is my true purpose in life that God has assigned me to.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Here in Atlanta there was an explosion of black businesses and restaurants. Fortunately, a lot of people I have grew up with professionally. So for brunch we would have to stop over a my colleague and friend’s locally famous Milk & Honey. Then I would have to take him over to where it all started, the Atlanta University Center. The Mecca of HBCUs, complied of the nations most prestigious black institutions in my Alma mater Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse & Spelman College, and Morris Brown College. The history and inspiration you get from walking across all 4 schools on one campus will speak for itself. For an evening night cap, I would head over to my Morehouse brother’s Tulum Restaurant or Bar Vegan for happy hour and great vibes with other dope young black professionals.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My Uncle Gary. RIP. He was my mentor. Took me in as a troubled youth while dying from a terminal illness, and passed away I was 13. However, he inspried just in time and enough for me to be who I am today.

Website: https://linktr.ee/jrhbcuacademy?fbclid=PAAaaEtjf0uFlB-W_e3O6BeHCXfUyTGdwvbAPvEUdX797n6MW_lHegshfHWTo_aem_AfFwLTnHIFM-pyoRvJ0n0ZzvCawY5cKI-s8ivvuq5Dm5nyvRUm7yTPZhtHsoMsCICZE

Instagram: Skylineluxe