Diablo Magazine
Diablo Magazine's 2025 Empower Player
Community Voice
Shonda ScotT CEO, 360 Total Concept
By Emilie White
Shonda Scott got an early start building her résumé. “I’m a fourth-generation business owner, so entrepreneurship is in my blood,” she says. “But I always say [selling] Girl Scout [cookies in my youth] was my first business.”
Today, the Oakland native is CEO of 360 Total Concept, a management consulting company she began in 2006 that supports corporations like Kaiser Permanente and Uber, as well as smaller businesses and organizations, in addressing issues related to contract compliance, community engagement, and more. The firm has also helped facilitate diversity spending strategies that have reinvested over $200 million into communities in need.
“The goal of our company is to always bring equitable solutions to the projects that we are on,” says Scott. “How do we better the community that we serve and include the community in areas [from which] they may have historically been excluded?”
Scott’s work in the business sector has earned her numerous accolades—including an induction into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame—and attention from the White House. She was appointed to the Obama Administration’s Platform Committee and to the
Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations by the Biden Administration. President Joe Biden and fellow East Bay native vice president Kamala Harris also gave her a President’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. Additionally, Scott served on President Barack Obama’s African American Leadership Council and was part of the group that helped advise the development of the White House Council on Women and Girls.
“We want to be our best selves, so those generations behind us can be their best selves,” says Scott. “We can pour into them because they are a reflection of us, just like we are a reflection of those who were before us.”
In the East Bay, she started the Pink Access Foundation to tackle health-care inequities for cancer patients. Scott continues to produce digital specials for Spotlight with Shonda Scott, her talk show that ran on local networks for 17 years and features conversations with leaders from communities across the Bay Area. She also founded her 12 New Things brand in 2019, which pushes followers to try a new activity every month.
“If you want to see change in your life and in your world, it starts with you,” Scott says. “You usually do more than 12 [new things] in a year, but at least 12 seems doable. … Once you get through that challenge, the blessings on the other side just open up your mind.”
Scott remains steadfast in her commitment to improving life in Oakland. “To hear people in your community say that the project that you’re part of inspires them when they’re feeling dark [is so important]. … So much happens in our community now that if there are places where people can find hope and inspiration, those are like answered prayers.”