McKnight, a resident of North Minneapolis for more than 35 years and a former MBA student at St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia, Halifax (Canada) studying the management of Cooperatives and Credit Unions that centers on Global economies and cooperative economics. Additional academic studies include-Urban education, public policy, Education, Human Service, and Community Development Financing.
McKnight has worked as an educator in the public and charter school system for 7 years and served across the social & economic development sector since 2003 in many capacities as a leader in Policy, government, nonprofit and within the for-profit sector and has served on several community development boards, commissions, committees, and initiatives. McKnight has extensive experience as a direct business service provider assisting more than 400 micro businesses with the technical support of facilitating business lending, business planning, strategy and marketing.
McKnight is the first African American in Minnesota to serve as a Met Council Appointee to the Transportation Advisory Board where she served as a regional equity leader focused on transportation policy, finance, planning, research and community engagement from local to national levels.
McKnight is a 2007 LISC Fellow, a 2012 Hubert H Humphrey Policy Fellow, a 2012 Bush Fellow, a 2017 NorthStar Cooperative Fellow and a 2019 Alafia Fellow. In addition, McKnight has received several awards from local community and business agencies and groups for her outstanding community and business leadership and was recently recognized as a 2019 Mpls & St Paul Business Journal “Top Woman in Business” Honoree and a 2019 Finance & Commerce “Top Woman in Finance” Honoree. McKnight is the President and Founder of the Black Women’s Wealth Alliance, SBC (BWWA) a public benefit corporation focused on improving the economic status of Black women. Since 2015 BWWA has served more than 3,000 Black women across Minnesota and has invested over $215,000 in grants supporting the capacity of Black women to build generational Black wealth.