Credit Suisse Seeks To Accelerate Wealth Creation Among African American Entrepreneurs

The Switzerland-based multinational financial institution Credit Suisse has launched a new initiative called the Entrepreneurs Circle to help African American entrepreneurs in the U.S. to accelerate long-term growth and to scale their businesses. The first of its kind initiative is the latest effort to reach out to the African-American business community. The program is part of Credit Suisse’s Private Banking and Wealth Management New Markets initiative, which seeks to advance financial opportunity among women, African-Americans and the LGBT community.

The bank selected 12 business owners to kick off its three-prong program providing capital, curriculum, and community. Circle members will have access to bank loans ranging from $1-$5 million; access to the bank’s global network of 45,000 investment bankers, wealth advisors and industry experts and learning opportunities in such areas as managing growth, marketing, sales, talent acquisition, and operations; and access to a group of like-minded peers and mentors.

“Credit Suisse aims to be an authentic and innovative accelerator of wealth creation in the African- American community and our other New Markets communities,” says Pamela Thomas-Graham, Credit Suisse’s Chief Marketing and Talent Officer and Head of Private Banking and Wealth Management New Markets. “Data clearly shows that African-American business owners are underrepresented among all business owners and are generally underserved by large, global financial institutions — our goal in launching the Entrepreneurs Circle is to begin to change that,” she adds. “We have an investment bank and a private bank; entrepreneurs tend to need both of those as they grow. They need advice about possible public offerings, acquisitions, or other monetization events. As they become more successful they need expertise on how to create more wealth and pass that on to generations.”

The program is not aimed at entrepreneurs who are just starting out of the gate or just have a business concept, but those who have an established product or service, actual sales, and revenues. “We also wanted entrepreneurs who would reinvest their success back into the communities,” says Thomas-Graham, an African American businesswoman, corporate leader and author.

Circle members include men and women in high-growth, global industries from around the country. “There are some interesting businesses being launched in African American communities and other high growth global industries, be it restaurants, the energy sector, tech, or consumer, media, there are a number of industries that wouldn’t traditionally be defined as tech but that are really high growth global businesses that have a lot of potential,” notes Thomas-Graham.

For lawyer, film producer and entrepreneur Tonya Lewis Lee, participating in the program is about taking her website Healthy You Now, dedicated to helping women of color navigate the vast (and often confusing) array of fitness and nutrition information, and turning it into an ecommerce business site. The revamped site will be an online store and subscription service whereby each month members will receive a box of tools to help them live a healthier lifestyle, from healthy snacks to digital applications to apparel coupons.

Lee is also looking forward to the curriculum from Credit Suisse advisors. “I don’t have an MBA, I have a law degree. Being a part of the circle will help me as I troubleshoot through the different phases of my business.”  Speaking specifically about her New York-based entertainment company, ToniK Productions, she notes that the access to capital (her biggest challenge) will be extremely helpful as well. “In my production work, about 85% to 95% of what I am doing is trying to raise capital to fund my projects.” Recent projects include The Watsons Go To Birmingham. Moreover. “I financed my website myself and it is to the point where I can no longer to do that.”

Lee recently landed her first equity investment for the ecommerce site from a woman angel investor in California, who has runs a fund specifically focused on women in the health and wellness space. “It is hard certainly in tech for women and minorities to raise capital. Tech is an insular community; the venture capital world is insular; you have to figure out who the people are and to get to know them and for them to get to know your business. It is not easy. It’s not just access to capital but access to individuals who have capital and expertise.”

Angel investor, serial entrepreneur, and fellow circle member Troy Carter knows all too well that African Americans are underrepresented in technology and the investment community.  For his business, he is looking to gain out of the program access to Credit Suisse’s global resources.

“Having them as a financial partner, dealing with global markets, and using them as advisors to scale our business, I think that it is a great partnership,” says Carter. “Just pulling together a circle of other entrepreneurs and being able to tap into their resources, knowledge base, and network as well as opening up mine to them was attractive to me as well.”

Carter is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Atom Factory, an entertainment and music management company based in Los Angeles. He has established the careers of numerous recording artists, from rapper/actress Eve to multi-platinum Grammy Award winner Lady Gaga. His company currently manages R&B Grammy Award winner John Legend and new pop sensation Meghan Trainor, whose debut single “All About That Bass” is the longest-running Number 1 Billboard song of 2014 so far by a female lead artist.

The landscape has changed for artist management since Carter cut his teeth

interning for industry moguls Will Smith and Sean “Diddy” Combs. “We are at a stage where distribution is lot different with the barriers of entry having been broken. Things are moving a lot quicker just in terms of building global artists. As a manager, we had to readjust our style and strategy just to be able to keep up with the pace of technology in terms of this accelerated artist development process. So, before you had a year or two years to get artists ready for a global stage now we have about three to six months to do it.”

Since founding Atom Factory in 2010, Troy has created several other entities. In 2011, he co-founded The Backplane, a Silicon Valley-based startup that allows celebrities and brands to connect with fans, foster community, and cultivate brand loyalty. In 2012, he created A IDEA, a product development and branding agency, and he launched POPWater, a low-calorie soft drink brand that he is scaling nationally. He also launched AF Square, an angle fund and technology consultancy with investment in over 40 startups including Spotify, Dropbox, Fab, Songza, and Uber.

“Where I am now is sitting at a cross section between content, technology and lifestyle culture.  We want to put ourselves in the center of the conversation. We have a technology fund where we invest in young entrepreneurs and we have a management company that invests in young artists.  That puts us in an interesting place,” adds Carter.

As an angel investor, Carter says that he like entrepreneurs who have failed before or who have lost money before–people who are entering the space with something to prove and have some experience under their belt. “That is a plus,” he explains. “When you look at Travis Kalanick CEO of Uber, that was his third company. We like working with entrepreneur who have been knocked on their backs a couple of times and have been able to get up.”

Carter says that it wasn’t until he got into investing that started to notice the lack of minorities into the space. Studies show that ethnic minorities account for less than 5% of the active angel population (nearly 300,000 wealthy individuals). Being an angel investor requires a thorough due diligence and vetting process of identifying fundable, scalable startups and early stage companies, Carter says. “You have to make sure that the entrepreneur understands what market they are in, the product that they are building and that they have the mental wherewithal to make through the tough process of the entrepreneur’s journey.”

The other ten circle members are Phil Bronner, CEO and Co-Founder of the college honors program Quad Learning; Jonathan Cropper, global branding/media strategist and founder of Futurlogic; Sheldon Gilbert, CEO of Proclivity Media, a high-performance cloud-computing technology platform specializing in predictive analytics; William Heard, CEO and CIO of the investment management firm Heard Capital; Heather Hiles, founder and CEO of the edtech company Pathbrite, developer of an eportfolio learning platform; John Legend, singer, songwriter,  and philanthropist;  Karl Simmons and E. David Ellington, respectively, CEO and president of GridSpeak Corporation, whose Web-based platform provides quantitative analytics for North American energy markets; Collin Wallace, founder of FanGo Software Systems, a mobile food-ordering platform; and, Hussein Warmack, president of Hantz Group Accounting, whose flagship software LEGACYSOFT is a financial tool for  high net-worth individuals.

According to Credit Suisse there is no formal graduation date from the program. However, the first group of entrepreneurs is expected to stay within the program for two years before being considered alumni and serving as mentors to the next generation of circle members.