Frank Richardson II was born and raised in the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia. He attended public schools and graduated from Central High School. Richardson originally matriculated to Virginia State University in Petersburg, Va., before graduating, with honors, from Eastern University with a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership.

After a successful career in sales, he decided to take a leap of faith and venture into entrepreneurship and opened a beauty and barber supply distributorship. MDI Beauty Supply eventually became the second-largest minority-owned beauty and barber supply distributorship in the tri-state area. After the banking collapse of 2008, Richardson sold his company and served in multiple roles at University of Pennsylvania and Knight Industries before being recruited by Rev. Dr. W. Wilson Goode to become the Program Director of SELF Inc.’s Outley House, the largest emergency shelter for single men in the city of Philadelphia.

In 2018, he had a desire to pivot into the human resources field where he could mentor and assist managers while being a resource to SELF’s growing workforce. Richardson attended Villanova University to earn his strategic human resource management certification and completed this journey by accepting a Human Resource Generalist position with the Urban Affairs Coalition. In 2022, Richardson moved on to become an Employee and Labor Relations Specialist with Temple University Health Systems before returning to SELF in 2023, as their Director of Human Resources.