March is Women’s History Month: Dr. Angela Reddix: Phenomenal Entrepreneurial Visionary

By Melissa Spellman
Staff Reporter
New Journal and Guide

The grand opening of the Mustard Seed Place at 340 High Street in Portsmouth, Virgnia on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, launched the brain child of entrepreneur, philanthropist, and leader Dr. Angela Reddix.  As we enter the final week of March Woman’s History Month, we highlight Dr. Angela Reddix. She is a leader in the healthcare industry, an inspiration to young girls and women, and an advocate for the advancement of women in entrepreneurship.

The Mustard Seed Place was formerly the Tidewater Community College Visual Arts Center. Reddix purchased the 33,000 square foot facility in April 2023 for $1.9 million. The ribbon-cutting ceremony held on March 27 opened the doors of the Mustard Seed Place as a hub for women entrepreneurs.

Reddix describes the facility, “The Mustard Seed Place is a haven for women. It is envisioned by a woman with all women investors. So, there’s no bank financing on this building and all women business owners within the building.” The Mustard Seed Place is coined by the phrase “Where Small Dreams Grow Big. Their slogan is “Cultivating an environment where woman can T.H.R.I.V.E.” Each letter in T.H.R.I.V.E. has its own significance: Tribe, Harmony, Resilience, Innovation, Vision, and Elevate.

Another part of this grand opening is a new program called The Womanhood Initiative. “The womanhood initiative is a membership base where women will get the coaching and training for life skills, business skills, and the ability to create their own path,” said Reddix.

This membership will include support to a woman’s mental health and physical health.  Reddix added, “In the building we have a woman’s gynecological and breast health center. We have a mental health boutique and a spa.”

Reddix shared more of the services available and partnerships in this venture. “We have a production company that’s woman-owned that will train and coach women on communicating their messaging. The YWCA of South Hampton Roads will be located there as a headquarters. We have a wealth lab which is a collaboration with the ODU’s Women’s Center,” said Reddix. She added that this facility also includes meeting space that the community and small businesses can rent as well as a nonprofit incubator where nonprofits will work together on growing their mission in a very strategic way.

Reddix is a native to Hampton Roads.  She runs ARDX which is a health care management and technology firm based in Hampton Roads with staff throughout the United States. Her company does government contracting, primarily working with health and human services. “I am first an employer and leader in the corporate sector. The company ARDX we are approaching our 18th year in business in November,” said Reddix.

The Womanhood Initiative is one of the programs under Dr. Reddix’s nonprofit Envision Lead Grow which will be headquartered at the Mustard Seed Place. The inception of Envision Lead Grow was based on her dissertation, thorough research, and a vision to help young girls succeed and thrive. 

When Reddix returned to college in an effort to grow ARDX, her studies would lead her into a higher calling.  “10 years ago I went back for my PhD to figure out how to establish the organizational design that will allow us to grow, to scale and to understand how to incentivize and motivate people to be the best,” aid Reddix.

She says she thought she wanted to study organizational design and organizational behavior; however, she read literature that led her in the direction of focusing on entrepreneurship and building entrepreneurs.

She continued, “So, my study which is my dissertation centered around going to areas where there’s high level of poverty; in particular Title I schools.”

Reddix sought to discover a method to create a path for young girls withstanding poverty to journey toward her same level of success.

“How could I basically recreate my story because I was that girl who grew up in less than ideal circumstances, but now I’ve landed in the middle of one of the top industries which is healthcare; landed in a position where I am influencing healthcare legislation, healthcare policy, where I’m an employer offering health benefits, 401k, and giving people an opportunity to play roles they may not have ever heard of,” explained Reddix.

Reddix posed the question of how her position of achievement happens, given where she started.

The literature her research is based on is the concept of “deliberate practice expert performance” which is the basis of her study.

“I went to the cities with the highest level of childhood poverty and introduced them to a curriculum and intervention that I designed from my study which was very much based on my success as a corporate leader, as an employee and employer,” said Reddix.

She documented it and took her study on the road to transforming communities of poverty into communities of prosperity through the promise of middle school girls. Reddix went to Baltimore, MD, Philadelphia, PA, Memphis, TN, Atlanta, GA, Greensboro, N.C, Richmond, VA and then back home to Norfolk.

“And so in that year we worked with 419 girls and we were able to show evidence that in that week of working with them on college campuses, and these were 5th, 6th, and 7th graders that we were working with for that week, we were able to increase their self-efficacy, increase their ability to demonstrate self-control, increase their ability to have conscientiousness, and increase their knowledge and understanding of why delaying gratification was important. Those happen to be the antecedents that the research shows are characteristics that successful entrepreneurs have,” explained Reddix.

Reddix shared that at the end of the study after completing her dissertation, defending her dissertation, and walking across the stage at graduation, she realized that it wasn’t just about the study, but it was about her next chapter.  Here is where she formed Envision Lead Grow which is now a non-profit that is all based on her study.

“We’re now eight years in; we’ve impacted the lives of approximately 3,000 girls in 48 states. Now we are moving towards starting in middle school and we continue with them through high school. We have a college program and now we have a womanhood initiative program” said Reddix.

Reddix’s goal is to now focus on the girls and women in the seven Hampton Roads cities.

“As the girls graduate and move on in life, we decided that we will no longer recruit externally from outside the Hampton Roads area, but we will put all of our resources in building our girls in the Hampton Roads area.  We have what’s called ‘A no place like home’ campaign where we’re trying to go deeper into the populations in Hampton Roads so that’s Envision Lead Grow,” said Reddix.

Reddix reflected on this accomplishment stating, “This is truly living out the faith of a mustard seed and you know the mustard seed is small but it’s also mighty. It’s one of the smallest seeds that grows into the strongest plant and that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to take something small, and that’s our tagline, from a small dream grows big. This is where small dreams grow big.”

To learn more about the Mustard Seed Place events, programs, services, or membership go to their website at https://mustardseedplace.com or email info@mustardseedplace.com.