For years, Houston had known Yolanda Green Barnes on television.
She spent nearly two decades in broadcast media, including years as a familiar face on CW39, interviewing celebrities, athletes, authors, artists, and elected officials while telling stories about the community she called home.
Today, Barnes is standing in front of a different kind of audience.
Instead of a television camera, she might be facing a room of executives. Instead of interviewing a guest, she might be challenging corporate leaders to rethink how they manage their teams. And instead of telling someone else’s story, Barnes is finally building something around the lessons she has accumulated over more than 30 years.
At this stage of her career, she says, she is going for it.
“My time with corporate America ended in December of 2025, and I was thinking about, what do I do next?” Barnes said. “I knew I wanted to do a business, but then I was also thinking about, do I go back into corporate America?”
Her husband offered a simple answer.
“Just do what you love,” he told her.
That advice helped Barnes make a decision that can be especially difficult for accomplished professionals: Rather than search for another position that looked like the one she had left, she decided to build something of her own.
Through The Ashayé Group, Barnes now works as a leadership consultant, executive adviser, coach, and corporate speaker, helping organizations develop leaders who understand that getting results and leading people are not necessarily the same skill.
“In this fourth quarter of my career, I’m going for it,” Barnes said. “It’s been 30 years of being in spaces in business and television. And now I get a chance to operate in my purpose, and it feels so good. It’s scary, but it’s good at the same time.”
From television to leadership
On paper, broadcast television and leadership development might appear to be two separate careers.
Barnes doesn’t see it that way.
Television taught her how to communicate, listen, connect quickly with people, and earn their trust. During her broadcast career, she earned eight Emmy nominations in the first two years of one program. But one of the accomplishments she remains proudest of happened away from the awards stage.
Barnes created and led a public service campaign that helped more than 5,500 children in foster care find permanent homes.
It showed her what could happen when communication was connected to purpose. Those skills followed her into corporate America.
After leaving Houston for an opportunity in Denver, Barnes eventually built and led a leadership development program that reached more than 3,000 leaders at a Fortune 50 company.
The experience exposed a problem she now sees repeatedly in workplaces: Companies often promote people because they are excellent at their jobs without ever teaching them how to lead other people.
“A lot of times experts will become leaders without any training, without any facilitated leadership,” Barnes said.
Technical expertise may earn someone a promotion, she said, but it doesn’t automatically teach that person how to build trust, navigate difficult conversations, understand employees, or create a workplace where people can thrive.
That is where Barnes believes emotional intelligence becomes critical.
Her work with The Ashayé Group focuses on connecting an organization’s business side with its people. She advises executives and organizations, provides leadership development and individual coaching, and delivers keynotes for companies and national conferences.
For Barnes, leadership development isn’t simply a human resources exercise. She sees it as a business strategy. Organizations perform better, she believes, when the people responsible for leading others are given the tools to do so well.
Her message has resonated particularly strongly with women.
“Yolanda is a dynamic speaker who resonates with her audience and empowers Black women,” said Brigid Roberson, who has seen Barnes’ impact.
Barnes says pouring into women has become one of the most meaningful parts of her work, particularly women who know they are capable of more but may still be hesitant to advocate for themselves, pursue a new opportunity, or claim their place at the table.
‘You’re starting from experience’
Barnes understands the fear that can accompany reinvention because she has lived it more than once. Her move from Houston to Denver was one of those moments.
Barnes had become a mother at a young age and had long promised herself that if she ever got the opportunity to do something different, she would take it.
When her company approached her about interviewing for a position in Denver, she was newly married and faced a decision that would mean leaving the city and the career identity people associated with her.
She talked with her husband, a former Marine, and decided to jump.
Barnes interviewed virtually without ever traveling to Denver. She got the job, moved to Colorado, and initially planned to stay for two years.
She stayed.
“It’s never too late to do something different,” Barnes said.
That lesson has taken on even greater meaning now that Barnes has a daughter and granddaughter watching her choices.
“I always want to be a good example for them,” she said.
For Black women in particular, Barnes knows walking away from a title, company, or career that took years to build can feel like throwing away hard-earned progress. She sees it differently.
“You’re not starting over, you’re starting from experience,” Barnes said.
It is a distinction at the center of her own story.
The television host didn’t disappear when Barnes entered corporate America. She took the communication skills with her. The corporate executive didn’t disappear when she launched The Ashayé Group. She brought the leadership experience, relationships, mistakes, successes, and lessons with her.
Each version helped build the next.
“We’ve given so much to corporate America,” Barnes said. “It’s time to do it for yourself. So, yeah, it’s going to be scary. Yeah, you’re going to stretch yourself, but you’ve made it through things before.”
Her advice is to take inventory of what those years have produced: expertise, judgment, relationships, resilience, and a clearer understanding of what you bring to the table.Barnes also knows she didn’t build her career alone.
“Understand and appreciate your value and what you bring to the table.”
Yolanda Greens Barnes
When asked whether she considers herself an inspiration, particularly to Black women, she initially hesitates. She thinks instead about the people who invested in her along the way.
“It was the women who poured into me,” Barnes said. “It was the people who thought enough of me. The people who believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself.”
Then she remembers one woman in particular. There was a time when Barnes was young, struggling financially, and couldn’t afford to feed her daughter. A woman at church quietly handed her $25.
“Those are the inspirations,” Barnes said.
Decades later, after television studios, Emmy nominations, corporate boardrooms, thousands of leaders trained, and countless stages, Barnes hasn’t forgotten that $25.
Perhaps that’s why the work she is building now is about more than becoming a better executive. It’s about helping people recognize what they already carry. For anyone staring at the end of one professional chapter and wondering whether it’s too late to write another, Barnes’ message is simple.
“Understand and appreciate your value and what you bring to the table,” she said.
