Growing up in foster care, becoming husband and wife and best selling authors with Justin & Alexis Black

Long Shot Leaders with Michael Stein

Alexis Lenderman-Black has dual degrees in Entrepreneurship and Global & International Studies with minors in nonprofit leadership and political science. Black is a serial entrepreneur, bestselling author, and Keynote speaker. Black founded The Scholarship Expert, a scholarship coaching in 2016 to assist students in graduating college debt-free. She co-published the award-winning, bestselling book Redefining Normal: How Two Foster Kids Beat The Odds and Discovered Healing, Happiness, and Love. Alexis spent several years in the foster care system before aging out and being adopted as an adult. She has served in several roles supporting current and former foster youth including as a National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) Reviewer. Additionally, she has studied abroad in eight different programs focusing on international marketing, humanitarianism, political theory and more. She hopes that through challenging others, accountability and inspiration, she can help to change the narrative of families and communities. Justin Black is a serial entrepreneur, bestselling author, and keynote speaker. With his wife, he published the bestselling book Redefining Normal: How Two Foster Kids Beat The Odds and Discovered Healing, Happiness, and Love. The Redefining Normal book transformed into a company where Justin and his wife host workshops, presentations, keynote speeches, and produce products to continue the conversation surrounding trauma, healthy relationships, foster care, and mental health. He has also developed policy recommendations while working with the National Black Child Development Institute resulting in a publication titled The State of the Black Child Report Card: Washington State. Black studied urban and community development as well as a political and economic philosophy in countries such as Rwanda, Uganda, Senegal, and South Korea.