Pinky Cole

Aisha “Pinky” Cole is the CEO and founder of Atlanta-based restaurant Slutty Vegan, a $100 million brand she built with her catchy slogans and signature burgers. Cole’s creative take on plant-based meals with racy names like "Sloppy Toppy" and "One Night Stand" launched her business into the spotlight, reinventing vegan food culture and receiving national acclaim in the process.

The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Cole, a former television producer, made her first foray into the culinary world with her popular restaurant, Pinky’s Jamaican and American Restaurant in New York City. After it tragically burned down, she relocated to Atlanta and came up with the concept of Slutty Vegan during a late-night craving. Just a handful of years later, with the business' ever-growing number of brick-and-mortar locations, Cole is building an empire with a rotating menu and a standard two-hour wait to pick up made-to-order food. The phenomenon is not only about food, but the intersection of community, commerce and compassion she has established.

In addition, Cole is the owner of Bar Vegan, also in Atlanta, and the founder of the Pinky Cole Foundation, whose mission is to support the health and generational wealth of the Black community using grassroots and hyperlocal efforts to empower young people of color to leverage economic opportunities. The organization’s entrepreneurship and financial literacy-focused education initiatives specifically target teens and young adults ages 13 to 22 in the U.S.