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Chauncey Holloman Pettis

Director, Arkansas Women's Business Center

Chauncey Holloman Pettis is the director of the Arkansas Women’s Business Center, which inspires women-owned startups to chase their dreams of entrepreneurship. She is the CEO of Harlem Lyrics — an integrated line of greeting cards, school supplies and apparel that she started at the age of 15. Her products have been sold in Kroger’s, Walgreens, Macy’s and many other retail establishments. Pettis has more than 10 years of experience in the world of entrepreneurship and small business, including participation on a number of boards and in committees including the Arts + History Selection Committee for the Arkansas Arts Center, the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame Foundation, the Think Big Economic Development Committee, and the Integration of Central High’s 60th Anniversary Committee.  Pettis also travels to colleges, conferences and seminars, sharing her story and motivating other budding entrepreneurs to pursue their entrepreneurial endeavors. In 2012, Chauncey began working with the City of Little Rock where she facilitated the redevelopment of the Small Business Development Office and oversaw an entrepreneurial training course. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Arkansas and has completed the Minority Business Executive Program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.

Related News & Stories

Winrock’s Arkansas Women’s Business Center celebrates 14 years of inclusive support to women-owned small businesses

October 4, 2023

At 15 years old, Chauncey Holloman Pettis launched her greeting card company and called it Harlem Lyrics. She was looking to buy a birthday card for her friend, but found nothing representing her or her friend’s age, gender or race. Pettis is a fourth-generation entrepreneur, and, like the generations before her, she saw a need […]

Building Inclusive Economic and Community Development Ecosystems in the Rural South

July 8, 2022

With the pandemic beginning to enshroud everything and everyplace, including her hometown of England, Ark., Vickie Woodard, retired music teacher, DIYer and aspiring entrepreneur, wondered how she would make it. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she says. “It wasn’t just COVID. It was George Floyd too.” Woodard is a Black woman in her fifties […]

Winrock’s AWBC Wins Grant from U.S. Small Business Administration to Support Women-Owned Businesses Impacted by COVID

August 23, 2021

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. ── August 23, 2021 ── The Arkansas Women’s Business Center (AWBC) has been awarded a Resilience and Recovery Demonstration Grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) Office of Women’s Business Ownership program. The AWBC is one of 14 women’s business centers in 13 states to receive the SBA awards, which aim […]