Squarespace x WePresents: Make It Real - Holley M. Kholi-Murchison
Holley M. Kholi-Murchison is a multimedia storyteller, education producer, social entrepreneur and strategist exploring the intersections of communication, culture and education. As a queer Black woman, she’s deeply committed to amplifying historically marginalized voices to catalyze change along the way.
For a lot of us it can take many years to figure out what we’re good at, or what our careers are going to look like, but for Holley Murchison the decision pretty much made itself. “Teaching runs in my family and has always come naturally to me,” she says. “I believe it’s in my blood.”
And with a lineage like Holley’s it’s little wonder. The educator and entrepreneur comes from a long line of politically active educators, teaching artists and musicians. Surrounded by influential women from a young age, her paternal grandmother was a self-taught singer-songwriter and instructor who taught a travelling choir while her aunt, Saundra ‘Tukee’ Barnes, was invited by the Ministry of Education in Beijing as an international expert to teach Scientific English to the top 10% of the entire graduate school population during the 1980s. “A trail was definitely blazed before me,” Holley says, “and this generational curiosity and thirst for learning is what shaped my capacity to teach, and reach, others, since I was a kid.”
As a child Holley gravitated towards places that fed her thirst for knowledge, and fell further in love with teaching during afternoons spent in her local library, Macomb’s Bridge Library, in Harlem, New York. Obsessing over books and the power of language on a near-daily basis, when the library got its first computer Holley quickly learnt all of the programmes and, at age 12, was hired by the library to teach others how to use it as a part time job.
The goal was to inspire and expose young people — and the communities who supported them...
Find out more about Holley's thoughts on the tools needed for success:
Now as a founding partner of HOLI. Brands, her work explores the intersections of communication, culture, and education to amplify marginalized voices solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges. In her day-to-day, she leads the human development agency, Oratory Glory. In her role there, Kholi-Murchison guides the expansion of their speakers collective, and cultivates global partnerships to design experiences and goods that help emerging leaders develop the confidence, skills and attitudes to execute their ideas and realize their potential.
“Whether I’m connecting with people on social media or in person while I’m speaking, teaching or working on global projects, my Squarespace website offers a dedicated place for them to land and continue the conversation. They learn more about my business values and approach, and it further validates their decision to collaborate with me and my team. One of the best parts is, they spread the word to their friends and colleagues. I’ve had a lot of great relational and financial wins as a result.”
Visit Holley M. Kholi-Murchison's website here.
Squarespace and WePresent partnered to celebrate and support Black female entrepreneurs. The series ‘Make It Real’ highlights four women who've transformed their creative ideas into a reality.
Discover more stories:
Jade Purple Brown on the power of representation in design
Liv Little on the need for diverse storytelling in media
Sharmadein Reid on the future of female empowerment in business