Women & Business presents the Women of the Year: ChiQuita Simms

Owner/President

DIVAdend Entertainment Ltd.

ChiQuita Simms' background in raising money for organizations like the National Kidney Foundation of Louisiana and the YWCA prepared her well to run her eventplanning business. Simms had operated the company, DIVAdend, part-time since 1996 but

Simms has handled events such as Mardi Gras parties for the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club and womens' events for the Greater St. Stephens Full Gospel Baptist Church. She says her favorite events to produce are awards banquets, festivals, celebrity appearances and fund-raisers.

Simms says she is particularly proud of a program she produced while she was development director for, the YWCA. She says the Y was doing a great job with its programs, but had none focused strictly on young women. So she set out to convince her boss that such a program was necessary.

"I kept pushing it," she says. "I sparked the interest of about 40 adult role models who pledged to work and make this a huge success. I got commitments from vendors ... and the community outpouring was tremendous."

Simms, her boss, and the committee pulled off the program, the YWCA Role Model Program, which honored outstanding girls from around the community. Thanks to the sponsors, the girls attended tea at Windsor Court as well as a workshop during which community leaders and role models talked to them about health, etiquette and careers. The event culminated with an awards ceremony at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Besides raising a son of her own, Simms is godmother to the four children of her late best friend, who was murdered several years ago by her domestic partner.

"I tell people I have five kids," she says. "I want each of them to know they have a mom to be proud of who loves them. All of my efforts and accomplishment are for them."

Simms now is outspoken about domestic violence; when she was with the YWCA, she coordinated a program as part of the Y's Week Without Violence that featured celebrity speakers who had lost relatives to domestic violence.

She says her parents also serve as an inspiration. Of her father, who lives in Las Vegas, she says, "He has done so much for so many ... although he comes from very humble beginnings, he is proudly serving as the first African-American speaker of the Nevada Assembly." Simms' mother, meanwhile, was one of the first Black women to sell computers and supplies in the 1980s.