Phala Mire

Women's Business Enterprise South

President & CEO

Phala Kimbrough Mire is the President & CEO of the Women’s Business Enterprise Council South (WBEC South), a regional partner organization of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). A non-profit executive for over 25 years, Mire currently orchestrates business growth and certification programs for women owned businesses in the South and is a renowned advocate and thought leader on entrepreneurship, diversity, inclusion, and women in business.

Prior to her work at WBEC South, she led the Southern Region Minority Supplier Development Council. Her accomplishments there included raising the Council’s network rating from 34th to the top ten and tripling revenues within her first three years. She simultaneously operated an MBDA Center for eight years, oversaw the recovery of Council operations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and led the successful merger of the Louisiana, Arkansas-Mississippi and Alabama affiliate councils to form the new Southern Region MSDC in 2015.

A graduate of Tulane (B.A.) and Louisiana State University (Shreveport, MBA), Mire is co-founder of the groundbreaking Bigger Discussion series on ‘The Future of Supplier Diversity’. In 2020, she was honored as a City Business ‘Woman of the Year’ and inducted into the National Women’s Business Hall of Fame.