Pizza Hut Free offers training, education and mentorship for Canadian small businesses

Boston, Mass. – The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, with support from Yum! Brands, is inviting small business owners from across Canada to apply for the 2023 Inner City Capital Connections program – a tuition-free, 40-hour “mini-MBA” program that combines executive education, webinars, and coaching delivered by university professors and business experts.

The ICCC-Pizza Hut Equal Slice Program is designed to help BIPOC-, disability-, immigrant-, and woman-owned small businesses across Canada develop strategies that build their capacity for sustainable growth and present opportunities to connect with capital sources to create local jobs.

Over the past two years, ICCC has collaborated with Yum! Brands to provide two cohorts of the program and a pilot cohort of the Mini-MBA Program. These programs have assisted 98 small businesses with accessing $170,000 in capital and achieving 112 per cent revenue growth. Three quarters of these businesses identified as BIPOC-owned, and 67% were woman-owned businesses. Five participants from each cohort were awarded with grants ranging from $20,000 to $30,000 Cdn.

The ICCC-Pizza Hut Equal Slice Program will host two Canadian cohorts in 2023. Small business owners from minority backgrounds are nominated by the public to be considered for the program.

For more information, visit icic.org/iccc.