Q: Tell us about you and the organization you run.

My name is April Fenall. I’m the founder and CEO at Piikup. We are a socially responsible delivery partner for businesses and consumers located in the San Francisco Bay area. We’ve been in business for about seven beautiful, grueling, journey filled years.

My hopes for the future are that I can lift up anybody who wants to be lifted up, and that they can come along with me on this ride, and they can meet their needs, and empower their family. Our tagline is, ‘Piikup empowers the workforce and their entire family at every stage.’ And that’s what it looks like, that we can continue not just touching that person that is hired or the person in the program, but their entire family through our network of resources and people that we know.

Q: Tell us about your industry and niche.

What I’m hoping to redefine in this work as a logistics and delivery partner in the supply chain sector is to make it a safe space and offer an alternative to extractive business models. Also, shifting focus back to the people and communities vs tech and profits. I believe that more people with varied lived experience will shape the future that creates safe spaces for us all to work with purpose. From delivery to supply chain, [those roles] are very male dominated, I don’t feel like it’s queer friendly. And so, when I reimagine the space, it’s an ecosystem where people that look like me are in the top tier of the roles of managers, of directors, of dispatchers, and are learning in demand technical skills.

Q: What does being ‘in community’ mean to you, as a business leader?

Two years ago [at the 2022 Community Retreat], I was in such a bad emotional state. The business was not “businessing.” It’s like when you are so deep in the in the woods, you can’t see the forest.

The REDF Community was instrumental in helping to support me at that time.

Fast forward this year, I’m here! I have a team member with me, who’s a graduate of our program, and it’s amazing.

I’m really grateful for this community. It’s brought me to what have been the joys of this work. And I can finally say, look, it’s not just me. Nobody wants to be alone in this work, even though I’m not. But having employees is just different. It shows the growth that’s happening at Piikup.

More on Piikup.

Piikup is an Accelerator Alum and the only socially responsible delivery service with a business model designed to educate and elevate the workforce.