Spreading the word: MATISA WILBON IS TAKING HER MESSAGE TO THE PEOPLE

Matisa Olinger Wilbon ’97 has a message, and she wants you to hear it.  

Maybe it’s more accurate to say Wilbon has a number of messages, and she wants everyone to hear them all.  

To that end, the speaker/author/minister/ businesswoman/professor/coach is leveraging every communications tool at her disposal to reach her audiences.  

“I am across all of these platforms for a number of different reasons,” she said. “As I think about my work and what I do and my purpose, it's centered in empowerment, but it's also within the faith community, and it's in the education community, and it's in the equity community.”

And from those communities — those who watch her TEDx talk on YouTube about coping with grief, or those who see videos from the Atlanta church where she serves as an elder and member of the ministerial team, or those who see her on Facebook talking about equity — Wilbon receives heartfelt feedback about how her message arrived at a time of need.  

Those interactions fuel her desire to keep reaching out and continue to grow her platform.  

“The heart of who I am and what I feel like my bigger purpose is… to equip, empower and educate people,” she said.

Wilbon’s videos have garnered hundreds of thousands of views across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook.  

Wilbon’s next initiative, which she named DisruptHer University, is described as “a women's leadership network empowering and equipping women in ministry and the marketplace to lead their lives with confidence and competence.”  

Wilbon describes it as the culmination of a lifetime of study, teaching, preaching and leading.  

“It’s going to be a one-stop shop for scholarship, for camaraderie, for community, but also to educate women and empower them to become better and to make a difference in their own lives,” she said.  

“I have a special connection to women who have felt like underdogs; to women who haven’t always found themselves with all the resources, but have a bright, bright light and a bright future.”  

That description sounds a little like Wilbon’s own story.  

A native of the Eastern Kentucky town of Hazard and a first-generation college graduate, Wilbon bucked the system at every turn. In high school, she was selected to join an all-star concert band comprised of high school students from around the country. She soon found herself the only student of color in a group of strangers touring Europe and playing music.  

She passed up a music scholarship to attend Centre College and was named a John C. Young Scholar while being active in Centre Singers and Centre Brass, and serving as president of the Black Student Union and the Pre-Law Society. She earned Distinguished Young Alumni honors in 2012.  

An anthropology and sociology major, Wilbon was awarded one of only seven American Sociological Association Minority Fellowships, paving the way for her graduate studies at Ohio State University, where she earned her master’s and Ph.D.  

“Centre is really the place where I would become much of who I am today,” she said. “That's where I started my sociology career. I was, and I am, a Beau Westonite. He's still a mentor and a friend to this day. I took a class with him and really just fell in love with sociology.”  

After completing her doctorate, Wilbon became a sociology professor herself, joining the faculty at Bellarmine University.  

“I'm a teacher at heart from the time I taught my brother how to tie his shoes at four years old,” Wilbon laughed. “I didn't know it at the time. I thought I was just a little bossy, but that's OK.  “But as I look back, teaching really is my call.” It’s that purpose Wilbon is seeking to fulfill now as CEO of Wilbon Enterprises and a community and church leader in Georgia. Fulfilling those goals has taken her to the TEDx stage, the pulpit and social media channels, building an audience each day.  

“For me, it’s all been very organic,” she said. “I didn't set out to say, ‘Let me build this following.’ I just really tried to walk in purpose and do it wholeheartedly, and that has opened up doors for me to be able to have these platforms.”