Kia Edwards - Human Resources Learning & Development Practitioner | EDU-preneur
Welcome to RISE Urban Nation with host Taryell Simmons. In this episode, we are joined by learning and development practitioner, edu-preneur and community activist Kia Edwards, who turned the gaps she saw during the pandemic into her own business, Champion Instructors Education and Training. Together, they talk about breaking into HR, becoming a subject matter expert, finding your niche, rest as a life lesson, and why inclusive curriculum matters.
Kia shares how it took going to an HBCU, Clark Atlanta University, for her to fully embrace and correct people on her name.
She explains how a temp job administering a learning management system at UC San Diego Health became a permanent career in instructional design.
A VP of HR at Scripps told her that people listen because she is an expert in one or two things, advice Kia still lives by.
Kia describes how pandemic gaps at work, in her son's special education services and in healthcare sparked her business, which she mapped out in three evenings using a Word proposal template.
She reveals that Champion Instructors is named after her miracle son Aseem, whose name means champion.
Breaking Into HR: How a post-baccalaureate HR certificate, tailored resumes and self-taught skills like Adobe Captivate moved Kia from higher ed into corporate learning and development.
Becoming the Expert: Why mentors, informational interviews and owning one or two areas of expertise build credibility.
Turning Gaps Into Business: How the shift to virtual learning revealed a need for e-learning and a pandemic-proof business.
Niching Down: Why trying to serve everyone like Walmart confuses customers, and how focusing on adult learners sharpened her messaging.
Rest and Wellness: The lesson that taking real time off and going to therapy protects you from burnout.
Inclusive, Accessible Curriculum: Building tailor-made courses where learners see themselves, with accessibility checks and diverse representation.
Do informational interviews and adopt mentors who can show you how they navigated their careers.
Pick one or two things to be an expert in, and one audience to serve, before trying to be everything to everybody.
Look for problems around you as business opportunities, and start with a simple business proposal template.
As a solo entrepreneur, join accelerators, boards and chambers of commerce, including networks beyond BIPOC spaces.
Take your PTO and unplug regularly so it does not take a crisis to make you rest.
Kia Edwards is a human resources learning and development practitioner and the founder of Champion Instructors Education and Training, which creates instructor-led and virtual e-courses for businesses and specialty curriculums for entrepreneurs and subject matter experts. A Clark Atlanta University graduate with a master's in education management and an HR management certificate, she has led instructional design and staff training at UC San Diego Health and serves the community through Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Jack and Jill of America and the board of Black Entrepreneurs Leaders and Learners. Learn more at https://www.championinstructors.com/.
Taryell Simmons: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of RISE Urban Nation. This is family in the building right here. She's got the big Africa earrings rocking and the bandana, about to take us to the motherland, all the way from San Diego. Miss Edwards, how are you?
Kia Edwards: I'm blessed. I am truly grateful. Thank you for this opportunity.
Taryell Simmons: We've been fam since day one. Refresh my memory, how did we meet?
Kia Edwards: You were the orientation trainer for the County of San Diego when I started as a staff development specialist, in January 2020, right before the pandemic took off.
Taryell Simmons: Nothing can stop what we're destined to do in this work of equity, diversity and inclusion. For the people who don't know you, who is Kia?
Kia Edwards: Kia is short for my full name, which comes from Zakiyah, Arabic for highly intelligent. I don't see intelligence as just grades and academics, but as making wise choices, being intentional about what I get involved in and who I connect with, and doing meaningful work in the community and in my home. I'm a mother of two very active little boys, and a wife to a fellow HBCU graduate. We joke that we're a house divided, because I went to Clark Atlanta University and he went to Grambling State, so we battle over whose HBCU is the best. I'm a native San Diegan, passionate about my Southeast San Diego family. I've supported the United Negro College Fund, helped champion California's resolution making July Uterine Fibroids Awareness Month, and I'm a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and Jack and Jill, all wrapped up in a chef, laundry and Chuck E. Cheese runs.
Taryell Simmons: How did your mom come up with your name?
Kia Edwards: I think my grandmother had a Muslim friend named Zakiyah, and my mom added letters to make it mine. I was raised in a dual-religion home. My mother was Christian and my stepfather was Muslim, so I practiced some Islam growing up and we also went to church. It took years for me to even like my name. I didn't truly like saying my real name until I went to my HBCU. There it was no longer embarrassing or a joke, and I learned to correct people.
Taryell Simmons: Shout out to all the Black moms setting us on paths of purpose from birth. My mom put the Y in Taryell. Growing up in DC, I used to sneak onto Howard University's campus to get some of that Black love. So when the kids grow up, where are they going to school?
Kia Edwards: We haven't talked about that! I'm down for Howard. I've always wanted to live in the DMV, so I'm open to following them. Their names are Ali and Aseem, so they have powerful names to stand up to too.
Taryell Simmons: We both have strong HR backgrounds. Nobody graduates saying "I'm going into HR." How did you get into it?
Kia Edwards: I have a master's in education with a concentration in management, and I felt stuck in higher ed, doing student recruitment and academic advisement. HR people kept putting me in a box, assuming I could only do K through 16 education support, when I wanted corporate learning and development. So I decided I needed some human resources education. I took the most cost-effective route: the Human Resources Management post-baccalaureate certificate at Capella University. I finished in about fifteen months with a 4.0, and that got people to stop focusing on my higher ed experience.
Kia Edwards: When I moved back to San Diego, I thought it would be different with my master's degree, and it wasn't. It was hustle time. So I got in the door at UC San Diego Health as a temp, administering the learning management system. Then they asked me to create e-learnings and onboarding training. That temp job became permanent, and now I'm full-fledged in instructional design, LMS administration and staff development, which is what led me to launch my LLC.
Taryell Simmons: Everybody's journey is different. Mine went from marketing to workforce development to HR. I love that you tell the humble beginnings story. What was your ladder to success?
Kia Edwards: It was a gumbo of several things. One was adopting mentors and doing what I call non-job-opening interviews, informational interviews where I'd ask, is there anyone in your network I can talk to about how they navigated their career? A VP of HR at Scripps told me that what got her where she is was that people know she's a subject matter expert in one or two things. She doesn't speak just to be heard. So she told me to figure out what I'm an expert at and stick with it. For me, that's learning management systems and instructional design.
Kia Edwards: Another side of the gumbo is my communications background. I'd take myself out of the resume and think about what someone else would want to see, so I learned to keep different resumes: one for higher ed, one for HR, and now one that emphasizes my DEI work. And I took on freebies: I taught myself Adobe Captivate on a free trial at home and presented what I created. Then the doors opened.
Kia Edwards: She also told me: don't try to be everything to everybody, because you lose credibility. When she speaks, people listen. That's the leader I want to be. First-generation and BIPOC professionals often lack mentors to tell us we don't have to speak every time we're in a room with important people because of imposter syndrome. Just be an expert in what you're an expert in.
Taryell Simmons: That advice helps in business too, when you niche down to your ideal customer. What made you decide to go into entrepreneurship, and how did you do it?
Kia Edwards: Working at the county, I realized we weren't working smarter. As a staff development specialist, I couldn't create e-learnings and assign them to new hires. Everything was four hours in a room with a salaried person physically there. When the pandemic hit, we were sent home with no plan for onboarding new hires. At the same time, my son, who was in a special education preschool class, was sent home with no plan for his speech, developmental and occupational therapy, and none of it was virtual. So there was a gap in corporate America, a gap in K through 12 and a gap in healthcare.
Kia Edwards: I'd wondered how education and HR could become generational wealth, and the pandemic was my answer. This is what I'm a subject matter expert in, and there was clearly a need at Rady Children's, at Poway Unified School District and at the County of San Diego. That lit the match. For the how, I opened a business proposal checklist template in Microsoft Word and filled in the answers, mission, values, services, revenue, over about three evenings. The instructional design part was easy. Life wasn't: daycare had closed for my one-year-old, my four-year-old was out of three services, and we were all packed in on top of each other. But it's a pandemic-proof business. If a pandemic happens again, I can't be shut down. It can only bring more business opportunities.
Taryell Simmons: You turned a problem into an opportunity. How did you come up with the name?
Kia Edwards: My oldest son's name is Aseem, which is Arabic for champion. He was my miracle baby. Because of uterine fibroids, we weren't sure about fertility. Fibroids are benign, but you don't know that until the biopsy comes back. His story is one of triumph and celebration, so we named him Aseem, and we are Champion Instructors Education and Training. The branding is a charcoal gray old-school chalkboard with the name in yellow chalk. Charcoal gray and yellow were my wedding colors. I'm proud to use his name's meaning in my business, as part of the generational wealth I hope to create for both my sons.
Kia Edwards: To be honest, I started out wanting to serve all three communities: corporate, K through 12 and telemedicine. I was asking business professionals, why can't I be Walmart and sell Christmas trees, TVs and Tylenol? And they told me you don't start out doing that. Pick one audience, maybe one and a half, test it, be the expert there first. So what's working is offering one or two services to one audience, and right now that's adult learners. I can't get caught up being everything to everybody. Clear messaging helps my reputation and my marketing.
Taryell Simmons: That happens to all new entrepreneurs, and the evolution never ends. If it does, you end up like Blockbuster.
Taryell Simmons: What's one good lesson life has taught you?
Kia Edwards: The pandemic taught me to really take time off. I've given companies blood, sweat and tears, and in eight years I haven't taken a real vacation. Having babies is maternity leave, not a vacation. I kept putting off the PTO. I probably wouldn't have felt so exhausted when the pandemic hit if I'd been unplugging from email, texts and social media every year or two, even for a staycation, and not because the world stopped and forced me to be still. I'm also an advocate for therapy and a participant. A lot of us in the BIPOC community are constantly trying to prove ourselves. I don't want it to take another pandemic for me to be still on my own terms.
Taryell Simmons: Pausing brings clarity. What advice would you give someone who wants to start a consulting business in your space?
Kia Edwards: I'm from the art side of the brain, not business, so I'd say take advantage of accelerator programs, the six- to nine-week ones, especially if you don't have a business background, because you don't know what you don't know. As a solo entrepreneur, I look to my left and right and there's no colleague, so being in a network of entrepreneurs has helped me most. I'm on the board of Black Entrepreneurs Leaders and Learners, B.E.L.L., and its mastermind sessions help me with questions like onboarding a contractor, marketing and sales. I also listen to podcasts like yours, Clubhouse and Eventbrite sessions in my niche, and follow influencers who share resources. I recently joined the San Diego County Black Chamber and the North San Diego Chamber of Commerce, because as BIPOC entrepreneurs, we shouldn't limit ourselves to BIPOC networks. The money is green. Hearing people speak my language keeps me motivated, grounded and humble.
Taryell Simmons: When you look at the future of equity, diversity and inclusion and professional development, what does it look like for the BIPOC community?
Kia Edwards: What makes me different from Udemy or other evergreen course sites is that I create tailor-made courses for each organization. If you want to create a course about your expertise to sell to your audience, I'll create it for you. And I keep my curriculum diverse and inclusive. I do an accessibility check-in: do learners have computers and Wi-Fi, and what's their native language? If the doctor in the curriculum is always a man, there's gender bias. So let Kia be the doctor and Taryell the nurse, let the woman be the engineer. The characters represent a range of ethnicities and identities, and I ask about closed captioning for learners who are hard of hearing. Learners won't have that aha moment if the curriculum doesn't represent who they are. It's what I'm called to do, even if you didn't pay me.
Taryell Simmons: Can I get an amen? Representation matters. If you can see it, you can achieve it. What are you working on, and where can people find you?
Kia Edwards: Email me at [email protected], visit www.championinstructors.com, or find me on LinkedIn as Kia Edwards. I just completed a 2D animated explainer video with the San Diego County Black Chamber. I'm supporting B.E.L.L. with some organizational work, I have HR proposals out, and I'm close to completing my California certifications for minority-owned, women-owned and economically disadvantaged businesses. I also serve on Poway Unified School District's special education committee to be a voice for BIPOC special education students. Booked and busy, but not too busy for more clients.
Taryell Simmons: Y'all heard her. Connect with my girl Kia, because she's amazing at what she does,. I'll put all her information in the show notes. Any last words of wisdom?
Kia Edwards: Be grateful, and as one of the B.E.L.L. vice presidents says, wash your hands. Because Rona is still booked and busy too. There's so much to be grateful for. And be great.
Taryell Simmons: Be grateful and wash your hands. Thank you, Kia. I appreciate you so much, sis. We'll catch you next time.
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