Elisse Douglass

Elisse Douglass specializes in leveraging strategic investing, partnerships, and bold vision to create the neighborhood economic hubs of the future, ensuring that they are equitable, innovative and reflective of local communities. As an impact investor, she builds and invests in minority-owned businesses that generate economic growth, specializing in place-based businesses and innovative retail concepts. As an established real estate professional, she has developed over 1M square feet of urban office, residential and retail space in the Bay Area and on the East Coast. Elisse’s inspiration to start the Oakland Black Business Fund came from a desire to build a platform capable of creating new growth strategies for Black economies at scale. Elisse is politically engaged in Oakland and was awarded the (2020) Community Advocate Award by the Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce for her COVID relief efforts in service of the Black community. Elisse holds an MBA from the University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business, where she was a Goldman Sachs Fellow and a Robert M. Toigo Foundation Fellow. She also holds a BA in Architecture from Columbia University in New York City.