New Jersey native, Charles S. Gates is an entrepreneur, coach, trainer, emcee and transformational speaker.

Charles takes his audience and clients from mundane to magnificent, using his TOP HAT leadership philosophy. His high-energy presentations and workshops are fun, in-your-face, and memorable.

Charles has been featured in the New Journal and Guide, Virginia’s oldest African American owned newspaper, The Suffolk News Herald, WAVY News 10 (Norfolk), WODU’s Let’s Face it Radio Show with Wil Strayhorn and WNSB’s Nonprofit Exchange Radio Show with C. Richard Gillcrese. He has also appeared on The Common Show with Juanita, WHRO’s Another View and the now defunct Cheryl Wilkerson Presentstelevision shows.

Charles serves on the boards of a handful of community based non-profits and was the immediate past Region 7 Advisor for Toastmasters International. He lives George Washington Carver’s mantra, “no individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.”