Amani Kelly the corporate ladder Hacker

MY BIOGRAPHY

At a young age, my mother and I moved to Salem, Massachusetts aka the “Witch City” where I played soccer, football, and basketball. Although not a saint, nor a scholar, I found my way to Newbury Junior College in Brookline, Mass. and was a walk-on to the Varsity Basketball Team. Unfortunately, my stint at the school ended after one year due to having to drop out of school to help raise my newborn daughter.

At the age of 19, with a newborn child, I had to grow up quickly and get a job. I started out selling shoes at Payless, moved to selling new and used cars, and then bounced around to several retail sales jobs at the mall before landing a professional role selling yellow pages door to door. This was my first structured sales role which required sales skills and strategy. Although, I did not spend a lot of time at the company, I found this as a pivotal point in my sales career where I understood the grit, and the grind it takes to be successful as a sales professional.

Along the way, I became a top producer at every stop I made including; Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Yellowbook, Atlantic Components, and then decided to pivot into the music industry as a manager and label owner. Although that led to some modest success, I was not completely satisfied, so I went back to corporate world in a career as an Account Executive for publicly traded Forrester Research (Nasdaq: FORR). Being at Forrester Research for over 12 years, I truly cut my teeth as a structured, consultative sales professional, and was a top performer in the company for several years. I then transitioned into management, eventually earning my way to a Director role with a large piece of the overall organizations’ P&L while managing over $50mm in revenue. I then took it upon myself to finish my Bachelors degree, and also completed a full year at Harvard University. In addition to my full time job, and being a full time father, I decided to take a bet on myself and get into the real estate game. I eased into rehabbing, and flipping just a few houses per year, to flipping houses quarterly and creating my own real estate development and investment company. However, by mid 2019, I decided that it was time to leave the corporate world to further along my own ventures in real estate, technology and investing, where I now continue to thrive.

I currently sit on the board of; Pencil, The Historic Buena Vista Community Association, and The Row on 12th South. I am the owner, or partner, in the following companies; Nashville Development Partners, The Sales Elite, Top Tier Sneakers, Guerrier Development, and Storyville Gardens. I am a published author of ‘Coffee 4 Closers”, former co-founder of Chivalry Magazine, and investor or advisor to several former and current companies. I am passionate about giving back to the community, mentoring the next generation, Mixed Martial Arts, sports, traveling, and music.