Monique Greenwood is a master multi-tasker with a vision. The 25-year journalism veteran, who succeeded Susan Taylor as Editor-in-chief of Essence Magazine, the preeminent publication for Black women, has now taken the hospitality industry by storm with Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns, an impressive collection of five historic B & Bs in Brooklyn, NY, Cape May, NJ, Washington, DC, and New Orleans, LA. Monique is passionate about empowering Black people and encouraging entrepreneurship, and to that end, she and husband Glenn purchased and developed a block in their Bedfords-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, community that now includes a 72-seat restaurant, a coffeehouse, a bookstore, an art and gift shop and a beauty salon. The native Washingtonian and graduate of Howard University is the best-selling author of Having What Matters: The Black Woman's Guide to Creating the Life You Really Want. A community builder who sits on many boards, including the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, The Bedford-Stuyvesant Business Alliance and Community Planning Board #3, Monique and her husband are the parents of Glynn, a 15-year-old high school sophomore deep in the throws of planning her super sweet sixteen birthday party. The family looks forward to 2009, when Glynn will turn 18, graduate high school and go off to college, and when Monique and Glenn will celebrate 20 years of marriage, 15 years of their successful business, and an early retirement where they spend a different season of the year in the private quarters of each of their inns.