The CashFlow

Yesterday we highlighted the upcoming Drink Well, Do Good, a 14-city concert series, happening throughout 2010, that aims to help black South Africans who work in that country's world-class wine industry but don't see much financial benefit from it.

Among the inspirations for (and underwriters of) that initiative are TheCASHFLOW 50 members Selena and Khary Cuffe, the husband-and-wife team behind Heritage Link Brands, which imports black-made wines, mostly from Africa, into Western markets.

Now the Cincinnati-based online magazine Soapboxmedia.com publishes a profile of Selena Cuffe, tracing her (and Khary's) entrepreneurial journey from school to the present day. Although Heritage Link Brands is based in Los Angeles, the Cuffes live near Cincinnati. Selena credits the local quality of life — "If I lived in New York or L.A., I wouldn't live in the house I live in," she points out — and notes that technology plus Heritage's business model means she and Khary can work from anywhere. (The company currently has four full-time staffers and 14 "wine ambassadors" scattered around the U.S.)

Business is booming, and the Cuffes are using their newfound prominence in the wine world to help celebrate and promote a continent that, from a business standpoint, is all too often overlooked. "It's a celebration of all things Africa," Selena says of Heritage's work. "To have these amazing South African wines . . . it's really about celebrating all things fabulous on the continent."