Aoifinn Devitt: This series was made possible by the kind support of Main Street Partners, a London-based independent and dedicated sustainable investment advisor that provides ESG multi-asset and multi-manager portfolios and a range of holistic portfolio analytics tools, including sustainability ratings and bespoke sustainability intelligence. It was also supported by Carbonado Partners, an industry expert in capital raising for all asset classes that endeavors to provide thoughtful solutions that address emerging managers’ perspectives and challenges.
Bevon Joseph: There was a recent study done by McKinsey that said in financial services, it’ll take 29 years to reach racial parity as far as the makeup of the industry. And if we at Greenwood Project could shave a year or two off of that, I think that would be huge. But our goal is to disrupt the way diversity recruiting and diverse talent development is done in financial services.
Aoifinn Devitt: Our next guest was shy, but never short of passion when he came to the US from Trinidad. Let’s learn how he learned to convert his passion into execution to found the Greenwood Project, creating opportunities for Black and Latinx students to enter the financial services industry. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Vivan Joseph, who is co-founder of the Greenwood Project, which is an organization that connects Black and Latinx students with career opportunities in financial services and fintech. He previously held a series of roles in investment banks and other financial services firms, mainly in trading management functions. He’s an advisory board member at the DePaul Career Center and is a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program. Welcome, Bhavan. Thanks for joining me today.
Bevon Joseph: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Aoifinn Devitt: So, let’s start by talking about your background and how you ended up working in the financial world.
Bevon Joseph: As you can hear from my accent, I am not from the United States originally. I was born in a small island in the Caribbean called Trinidad, and Moved to the New York area after high school, just pursue my studies and stuff. The very first job I had was on a trading floor, and I was a computer technician guy. It was like 500 people on a single floor. I had no idea what was going on, but I was fascinated and intrigued by what was around me and made friends with some traders and some folks in the business. And I was just so fascinated around the fast-paced environment and the markets and really dug into it. And for 20 years, I stayed on trading floors and banks, hedge funds, exchanges, just was always intrigued about the markets, decided to become a subject matter expert in it and went down the technology trading route and did that up until 2016 when I, my career took a wild turn into the nonprofit space.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, we’ll talk about that in a little bit, but just going back to your role in trading, did you face any obstacles at all in pursuing those roles? You were, as you mentioned, from a diverse group yourself. You were not from the United States. Was it generally a welcoming community?
Bevon Joseph: So, for me, I just always noticed looking around the room, there wasn’t many people who looked like me, and I was always fascinated and curious about that. One of the biggest challenges is I just didn’t know what was going on around me as far as having mentors or being connected to the industry, not having that like social capital to know anybody in the business. I had to kind of figure it out myself. So one of the biggest challenges for me was just learning on my own. Eventually I got mentors and stuff like that, but that was a big challenge. The learning curve was pretty steep. I had to kind of figure out a lot of stuff on my own. Again, also just like I said, not much diversity existed on those trading floors. That was some of the biggest things that stuck out to me.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s a really interesting point you make about social capital, because clearly at the Greenwood Project, that’s something you’re trying to address for other individuals. So let’s talk then about the genesis behind that sudden— maybe not sudden, but that’s certainly that dramatic career turn. What prompted you to start that?
Bevon Joseph: Again, I was curious about the lack of diversity that I saw, especially around interns, entry-level talent. I was in a position, I was managing interns. I had— every summer I had interns on my team. They all seemed to be related to or connected to somebody at that firm. They had family member there, dad, uncle, it was always some type of a relative that was getting them in the door. In all those years, I never had a diverse intern. I never had a Black or Latinx intern. And I said, you know what, I know a lot of smart Black and Latinx students and they would do well at some of these firms. In 2016, my wife and I, so my wife is from Chicago, she’s African American, she’s been in the financial industry for 20 years as well on a prop shop here in Chicago. And she was one of only maybe 5 Black employees at a 350-person firm as well. So she had also noticed the same thing over her career on the trading floors and stuff. So we were just talking one night, at the time our daughter was 2 years old, and we were saying, you know what, her name is Pilar. I said, if Pilar wants to get into financial services, we could really open up some doors for her. Like we know so many people in the business, we could just say, hey, she’s interested, get her internship. And then we said, what about all the other kids that don’t have those parents? What about those kids? Who’s going to open up the doors for them? And that’s when we said, you know what, let’s lean on our own social capital. Let’s lean on our network. Let’s talk to the firms that we used to work at that we have good connections with and say to them, hey, are you willing to take a student this summer? We’ll do the work to go out and find them. We’ll do the work to educate them, train them. All we’re asking you is to give them a chance. And that started in 2016 with 5 students. And, you know, fast forward to 2021, Over 350 students have gone through the Greenwood Project.
Aoifinn Devitt: Is it internships or actually permanent roles? And what is your geographic reach?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, I mean, the goal from day one was to reach as many students as possible because we’ve realized that there is no lack of talent. All we have is a lack of opportunity and exposure. The students are out there. The problem is the firms and the students aren’t meeting each other. And we are in the middle. We’re almost like a market maker, a broker. We’re introducing both sides to each other and making sure it’s a good fit. So we’re doing all the legwork for the firms to find these diverse candidates and get them ready and bring them to their doorsteps. And yeah, the goal is to put them in a career. The goal is to get them jobs because our mission is bigger than just an internship. Our mission is to teach Black and Latinx students that they can start building generational wealth starting with themselves. And a job can have a ripple effect. Like you wouldn’t believe in a diverse underserved community. So for example, 75% of our alumni now have full-time roles and the average salary starting is like $65,000. And for them, that feels like they’ve hit the lotto. They’re easily the highest income earner in their family ever. And we’re breaking these generational cycles of folks who’ve been underrepresented in financial services, We also create 50 or more new investors every summer by giving our kids funded brokerage accounts. So Greenwood Project is more than just a summer job. It’s more than just an internship. It’s like you said, putting them in a career, getting them converted to full-time. And we’ve been doing that at a pretty high rate so far.
Aoifinn Devitt: And how have the firms in the industry received this initiative? Have you seen there’s an enthusiasm around that?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, definitely. Especially in 2020, you know, so last year was upside down year for a lot of nonprofits and a lot of businesses in general with COVID and stuff like that. So we, we moved to the virtual space really quickly in March last year. And because of that, we didn’t have to turn away any students. Firms were happy, students got a lot out of it. But when the George Floyd situation happened and the Black Lives Matter movement kind of kicked off, we happened to be the firm that was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. So a lot of financial services and fintech companies came to the table and said, listen, how can we help? And for us, it was open up your doors, help, you know, invest in our mission to get more students in the door. And we recruited easily maybe 30 or more new corporate partners in 2020, and that really spurred a huge you growth, know, trajectory for us and helped us start going national and even working with firms in London as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: And as far as the individuals themselves who go through the program, what kind of ways do you help them to enhance their social capital? Do you create or act as an affinity group? Do you provide training and maybe networking skills or just other supports that maybe go beyond the actual position?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, college students, when they get accepted to Greenwood, and the application process is pretty intense, pretty similar to like an investment bank because we understand that what we do is not for every student, so we’re very selective about who gets in. But once they’re in, the summer program is 10 weeks long for college students. The first 4 weeks It’s all training. For 40 hours a week for 4 weeks, they’re training with us. That’s hard and soft skills. We work with third-party providers who design, help us design our curriculum to teach them like how to evaluate a company. They’re in a stock pitch competition, but that’s only 40% of our curriculum. The rest of it is how do you be a good intern, how to be yourself at work, how to be at work. A lot of college kids are super smart, but nobody’s teaching them how to be at work. How to set up professional email, how to dress. We get them professional headshots, mock interviews, social media etiquette. We do a ton of workshops on that stuff because we want them to have some type of a foundation going into these firms for the summer and they can really hit the ground running. So 4 weeks upfront of training and then a 6-week internship at a firm that partners with us to take them. So yeah, soft skills is a huge part of what we’re doing. And social capital-wise, it’s really a ton of networking. They visit a different company every day for 6 weeks in the high school program. We did 66 virtual events last summer. We’ll probably do more this year. The whole point of that is for them to grow their network and meet more people who can open up doors for them potentially. At the end of the summer, social capital has increased dramatically. And we also, on our side, measuring that just to show the impact we’re having as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: And looking to the future now, what are your plans in terms of growing this? I know that you talked about expanding it beyond the US even.
Bevon Joseph: We have about 4 or 5 firms in London right now that we’ll have students working at this summer virtually and in person when the world finally opens up again. But for me, it’s always been about putting Greenwood Project in every major financial hub and city in the US and eventually across the world. Because I mean, even though we’ve helped about 300+ students so far in 5 years, there are thousands and thousands of kids out there who can use our help. And firms are also trying to be more diverse as well, and they’re looking for this talent, and we’re doing the work of finding it and getting them ready for these firms. So we’re serving two-sided market here as far as who we’re helping. So there was a recent study done by McKinsey that said in financial services it will take 29 years to reach racial parity as far as the makeup of the industry. And if we at Greenwood Project could shave a year or two off of that, I think that would be huge, but our goal is to disrupt the way diversity recruiting and diverse talent development is done in financial services. And if you look at the list of partners that we have, everywhere from prop shops to hedge funds to the big bulge firms, I mean, everybody’s coming on board realizing that the way we do it takes time. It’s an investment, it’s hard work, it doesn’t pay off like overnight. You might see they might have to take 2 or 3 internships for a student to get to the point where they can walk into a Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley and get through that interview process on their own. But firms won’t see, per se, a return on their investment for a couple summers when they partner with us because it does take a while because, again, a lot of systemic historic factors go into the why this population has been disconnected. But yeah, our goal is to really disrupt the way recruiting of diverse talent is done in finance.
Aoifinn Devitt: Going back now to the broader question of diversity in the investment world, when you mentioned that many firms got in touch in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd and during last summer’s social movements, which really, I think, triggered a lot of corporate statements. In my view, some diverse members of the financial community have been a little bit cynical about some of those gestures, that there’ve been a lot of corporate statements, a lot of pledges, a lot of maybe paying lip service to the idea of diversity, and they’ve seen this movie before. There’s sort of, well, what’s different this time? How do you kind of think about the diversity as it’s evolving in the financial services industry and whether it is different this time?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, I, I’ve heard on an almost daily basis some of these same sentiments. The way we look at it and the way I look at it is we tell firms, if you wanna be all in on this, if you’re serious about it, Why don’t you partner with us for 3 to 5 years, right? Show us a commitment to the process, show us a commitment to you understanding our mission, our purpose, the population we’re serving. Because to find diversity, especially for the financial services space, a lot of firms have tried, they’ve thrown a lot of money at it. They’ve gone to all the historically Black colleges and universities trying to recruit students. In many ways, the firms we work with and other firms, they can’t find the students that we find. And sometimes our students are at those same firms at certain colleges as well. But one way is to hold these firms accountable, and the serious ones are saying, “Okay, we’ll take a long-term investment in Greenwood, understanding how you’re serving these students and what you’re trying to achieve here.” So yes, there will be a lot of firms putting out statements and stuff like that, but we found a way to kind of weed out the ones who are serious and the ones who understand our mission and our goals. Again, holding them accountable and setting goals, for example, of X number of interns every summer at your firm, increasing that number over time with a goal of converting a percentage of them to full-time staff. So one of the main questions I ask companies is, is there a path towards a full-time opportunity here for our students? Because again, it’s not just a summer internship, it’s an actual career down the road, a career and a job that will have a ripple effect. On this young person’s life. So that’s some of the things that I’ve been seeing and the way I’m thinking about it when it comes to holding firms accountable and getting them committed to our mission.
Aoifinn Devitt: And it seems also that the battle is not won essentially when the person has got the full-time position. You ultimately want them to thrive there and there to be an environment that’s inclusive and that allows them to flourish. How do you work with those firms to create the inclusion part? Because it sometimes feels that that is a little more challenging than simply getting the numbers.
Bevon Joseph: I agree. I tell firms, listen, I could go get the talent, get them ready, bring them to your doorstep. It’s your job to keep them there. It’s your job to help them realize that they feel, you know, make them feel welcome, realize there’s a path forward, there’s upward mobility. We can’t be there with them every day and can’t be there with you every day to hold your hand, so to speak. So, One of the really key ingredients to our success has been employee resource groups at financial firms. Like, I look to partner with them first and say, listen, I will bring these young people to the firm. It’s your job to put your arms around them, make them feel welcome. Because retention, as we all know, is a big problem in financial services. A lot of Black and Latinx employees just go from firm to firm. There is no pipeline coming in. Individuals are just going from firm to firm. You’re so right when you talk about retention and inclusion. Making them feel welcome, making them feel like there’s people they can go to outside of their direct manager if they have questions. One way we do that, every intern gets a mentor at that firm that they’re working at, and the mentors are usually not their direct manager, and they meet with them on a weekly basis. They check in with Greenwood. If there’s anything going on, we collaborate on it and we resolve the issue. But it’s really about making the young people feel supported, welcome, included, And we also do mentor and volunteer training for the firms as well that are taking interns. So those individuals at the firm can fully understand who we’re serving, why they might need some extra handholding initially, and how to make this summer a success for both the firm and the young person. So the inclusion and feeling welcome at the firm is a big, big part of what we’re doing. Our alumni is very engaged and any support that they need, they always have Greenwood to come back to. And we’re supporting them. The student from 2017, he’s probably our longest full-time employee who’s gone out into the financial services space. He’s just got promoted. He’s in his third year. And again, I’m in touch with him all the time and he could come back if you have questions about how do I ask for a raise, or I’m looking to go to a different firm. You know, we are here to advise them and coach them, but those are some of the things that we do around the inclusion and kind of the retention part as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: Those are really excellent resources. So just going back to your personal story now, were there any setbacks or challenges that you really learned lessons from over the course of your career?
Bevon Joseph: I thought I could figure it out myself. And you know, when I look back to my time, like I was on Morgan Stanley’s trading floor, one of my first jobs, and I didn’t know that I needed a mentor. I didn’t know that I needed guidance. I was just trying to figure it out myself. I didn’t have a Greenwood Project. And I think in many senses, Greener Project exists to be the person or the organization I didn’t have myself and my wife didn’t have when we were starting our careers in financial services. We are helping the students avoid a lot of the mistakes that we made. We’re trying to break down some of those challenges and barriers that we faced on those floors as well. One of the biggest challenges was feeling like you didn’t belong because you didn’t see people who looked like you on the floor, you know, questioning whether I can do this, you know, I didn’t go to Ivy League school and The conversations that folks were having around me, I just didn’t feel like I fit in. Again, I’m an immigrant to this country, and I was really concerned about my accent, and I wouldn’t speak up. Now you just can’t shut me up at all. I think it’s really teaching young people, and me looking back as well at my time on the floors, of it’s okay to be yourself. It’s okay to ask questions. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to have a mentor. But again, I think Greenwood Project in many instances In my— when I think about it, it’s the organization I wish I had 20 years ago when I was starting my career because I would have been so much more ahead of the game and done so much more in my career. But I wouldn’t change a thing actually, because those 20 years helped me get to where I’m at and are key ingredients into the success of Greenwood Project, I think.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I know that you didn’t have a Greenwood Project, and that’s remarkable that you have now set up this huge organization to really address that. But who did you have? Who were some of the key people who maybe influenced you, not only in your career, maybe in life so far?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, I think my dad definitely, you know, he was an entrepreneur and had his own business and he also was an activist in Trinidad in what we call, so our version of the civil rights movement in the ’60s and ’70s was a Black Power movement in Trinidad and he was a very active participant in that. So I always saw him fighting for people. I always saw him giving back. I saw him running his own business And for me, I feel like the ultimate measure of my success will be the number of students I’m able to positively impact, right? Their lives. So, you know, every day I get up to do this Greenwood Project work, I think about the students. I think about, you know, how can I help them? I think about what firm I can get on board to help take more students. So, definitely my dad, number one. And then as I started my career, I developed mentors at firms that I worked at. Who saw something in me I probably didn’t see in myself and put me into leadership roles. And when I asked them like, why did you do that? They said they just saw my willingness to always give back, be a team player, help lead a team, take on responsibilities when nobody else wanted to. So I think at some of the firms I worked at, particularly Morgan Stanley and Chicago Trading Company, there were individuals who I worked for there who we’re still really good friends today and they are mentors of mine that I go back to. And then in the Greenwood Project, you know, last 5 years or so, John Rogers from Ariel Investments is somebody that is a mentor. Chris Gardner as well is a mentor of mine. And I ping those guys and talk to you them, know, every so often about what we’re doing and take their lead as well. So I think I just have gravitated to a lot of people who are passionate about this work, passionate about helping young people in particular. And those are the folks that I kind of look up to as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, certainly John Rogers has been mentioned more than once on this podcast. So that’s a testament to his influence that he has made such a difference. And what do you think about any maybe words of advice or gems of wisdom, words to live by that have guided you in your life and that you pass on? What would you say?
Bevon Joseph: I would say, you know, if I’m thinking about just my journey and how I ended up at Greenwood, you know, I was passionate about this thing for a long time, but passion only gets you so far. I say passion is my fuel, but execution is what gets me mileage because— you know, I went out to start this nonprofit never thinking in a million years that I would— this would be my full-time job 5 years later. But it took off so quickly, and I had to figure it out. You know, so I tell all young people that, you know, opportunity doesn’t go away, it just goes to the next person. So always be ready, stay ready. And we preach that over and over to our young people. Just always be ready. There’s so many things that we teach them about, you know, having an elevator pitch and having your resume ready. And if I call you and say, hey, I need you to interview on this date, be ready to go. So for me, it’s all about execution. Greenwood is growing much quicker than I expected, but we got to figure it out. You know, the opportunity is here. 2020 brought so many new firms to the table, significant funding, significant partnerships with many more firms breaking into the fintech space in a big way. There’s so much going on with Greenwood Project, but it’s great to grow fast, but it’s bad to grow fast in a bad way. So we’re building the capacity to handle the growth. I’m learning a lot. This is all new to me. I am learning on the job pretty much, but I’m surrounding myself with a board of directors and advisors who have done this before, who can guide me, can say, hey, you need to brush up on this area, you need to go back and do this kind of training or education or whatever. I’m always willing to learn. I’m always understanding that this process takes a while. It takes time and it’s going to take really hard work. So, To get to where we want to go is going to be an uphill climb, but I’m super ready. We’ve learned a lot from the last 5 years. I’m excited for the next 5.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really remarkable. My last question is any advice you might have for your younger self, maybe that young boy coming from Trinidad to the US? Is there anything that you know now that you wish you had known then?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, I think I wish I had known that I needed to seek out people who I can lean on for advice and stuff like that. And also, being shy doesn’t get you anywhere. So I was afraid to speak up. I was scared to be myself almost. But I realized later on in life, like, those things are strengths, you know. Being so-called different is actually something I’m super proud of. If you get on a Zoom with me, there’s like pictures of Trinidad in the background, and there’s, you know, there’s all this stuff. I’m very proud of where I’m from. I look at it as like a superpower now as far as my so-called differences is back then I would tell myself, if you’re shy, get over it because that doesn’t get you anywhere. So don’t be scared to be yourself. People actually enjoy that. People actually ask me constantly where I’m from and I have to tell them about Trinidad and my background. You know, I go on Bloomberg TV and people can hear my accent and they know I’m from somewhere else. And I’m not ashamed of that anymore. I’m super proud of it. And I think my advice would just, you know, don’t be scared to be yourself because That’s the best person to be, actually.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, that really, I think, encapsulates the new language of diversity, that our differences really are our strengths. And I think you express that in such a beautiful way and with such authenticity. It is very insightful and very inspiring. Finally, I just wanted to comment just how really remarkable it is to take one experience of your own experience and that of your wife’s and to convert that in such an exponential way into the influence you’re having on hundreds of students. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of exponential effect, but it really just shows the power of an idea. And as you said, not just the idea, but persistence and excellent execution. So thank you so much. And on my behalf for what you’re doing for the industry, it’s very inspiring. And I wish you all the luck with it over the years ahead.
Bevon Joseph: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors on their personal journeys, Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: This series was made possible by the kind support of Main Street Partners, a London-based independent and dedicated sustainable investment advisor that provides ESG multi-asset and multi-manager portfolios and a range of holistic portfolio analytics tools, including sustainability ratings and bespoke sustainability intelligence. It was also supported by Carbonado Partners, an industry expert in capital raising for all asset classes that endeavors to provide thoughtful solutions that address emerging managers’ perspectives and challenges.
Bevon Joseph: There was a recent study done by McKinsey that said in financial services, it’ll take 29 years to reach racial parity as far as the makeup of the industry. And if we at Greenwood Project could shave a year or two off of that, I think that would be huge. But our goal is to disrupt the way diversity recruiting and diverse talent development is done in financial services.
Aoifinn Devitt: Our next guest was shy, but never short of passion when he came to the US from Trinidad. Let’s learn how he learned to convert his passion into execution to found the Greenwood Project, creating opportunities for Black and Latinx students to enter the financial services industry. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Vivan Joseph, who is co-founder of the Greenwood Project, which is an organization that connects Black and Latinx students with career opportunities in financial services and fintech. He previously held a series of roles in investment banks and other financial services firms, mainly in trading management functions. He’s an advisory board member at the DePaul Career Center and is a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program. Welcome, Bhavan. Thanks for joining me today.
Bevon Joseph: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Aoifinn Devitt: So, let’s start by talking about your background and how you ended up working in the financial world.
Bevon Joseph: As you can hear from my accent, I am not from the United States originally. I was born in a small island in the Caribbean called Trinidad, and Moved to the New York area after high school, just pursue my studies and stuff. The very first job I had was on a trading floor, and I was a computer technician guy. It was like 500 people on a single floor. I had no idea what was going on, but I was fascinated and intrigued by what was around me and made friends with some traders and some folks in the business. And I was just so fascinated around the fast-paced environment and the markets and really dug into it. And for 20 years, I stayed on trading floors and banks, hedge funds, exchanges, just was always intrigued about the markets, decided to become a subject matter expert in it and went down the technology trading route and did that up until 2016 when I, my career took a wild turn into the nonprofit space.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, we’ll talk about that in a little bit, but just going back to your role in trading, did you face any obstacles at all in pursuing those roles? You were, as you mentioned, from a diverse group yourself. You were not from the United States. Was it generally a welcoming community?
Bevon Joseph: So, for me, I just always noticed looking around the room, there wasn’t many people who looked like me, and I was always fascinated and curious about that. One of the biggest challenges is I just didn’t know what was going on around me as far as having mentors or being connected to the industry, not having that like social capital to know anybody in the business. I had to kind of figure it out myself. So one of the biggest challenges for me was just learning on my own. Eventually I got mentors and stuff like that, but that was a big challenge. The learning curve was pretty steep. I had to kind of figure out a lot of stuff on my own. Again, also just like I said, not much diversity existed on those trading floors. That was some of the biggest things that stuck out to me.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s a really interesting point you make about social capital, because clearly at the Greenwood Project, that’s something you’re trying to address for other individuals. So let’s talk then about the genesis behind that sudden— maybe not sudden, but that’s certainly that dramatic career turn. What prompted you to start that?
Bevon Joseph: Again, I was curious about the lack of diversity that I saw, especially around interns, entry-level talent. I was in a position, I was managing interns. I had— every summer I had interns on my team. They all seemed to be related to or connected to somebody at that firm. They had family member there, dad, uncle, it was always some type of a relative that was getting them in the door. In all those years, I never had a diverse intern. I never had a Black or Latinx intern. And I said, you know what, I know a lot of smart Black and Latinx students and they would do well at some of these firms. In 2016, my wife and I, so my wife is from Chicago, she’s African American, she’s been in the financial industry for 20 years as well on a prop shop here in Chicago. And she was one of only maybe 5 Black employees at a 350-person firm as well. So she had also noticed the same thing over her career on the trading floors and stuff. So we were just talking one night, at the time our daughter was 2 years old, and we were saying, you know what, her name is Pilar. I said, if Pilar wants to get into financial services, we could really open up some doors for her. Like we know so many people in the business, we could just say, hey, she’s interested, get her internship. And then we said, what about all the other kids that don’t have those parents? What about those kids? Who’s going to open up the doors for them? And that’s when we said, you know what, let’s lean on our own social capital. Let’s lean on our network. Let’s talk to the firms that we used to work at that we have good connections with and say to them, hey, are you willing to take a student this summer? We’ll do the work to go out and find them. We’ll do the work to educate them, train them. All we’re asking you is to give them a chance. And that started in 2016 with 5 students. And, you know, fast forward to 2021, Over 350 students have gone through the Greenwood Project.
Aoifinn Devitt: Is it internships or actually permanent roles? And what is your geographic reach?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, I mean, the goal from day one was to reach as many students as possible because we’ve realized that there is no lack of talent. All we have is a lack of opportunity and exposure. The students are out there. The problem is the firms and the students aren’t meeting each other. And we are in the middle. We’re almost like a market maker, a broker. We’re introducing both sides to each other and making sure it’s a good fit. So we’re doing all the legwork for the firms to find these diverse candidates and get them ready and bring them to their doorsteps. And yeah, the goal is to put them in a career. The goal is to get them jobs because our mission is bigger than just an internship. Our mission is to teach Black and Latinx students that they can start building generational wealth starting with themselves. And a job can have a ripple effect. Like you wouldn’t believe in a diverse underserved community. So for example, 75% of our alumni now have full-time roles and the average salary starting is like $65,000. And for them, that feels like they’ve hit the lotto. They’re easily the highest income earner in their family ever. And we’re breaking these generational cycles of folks who’ve been underrepresented in financial services, We also create 50 or more new investors every summer by giving our kids funded brokerage accounts. So Greenwood Project is more than just a summer job. It’s more than just an internship. It’s like you said, putting them in a career, getting them converted to full-time. And we’ve been doing that at a pretty high rate so far.
Aoifinn Devitt: And how have the firms in the industry received this initiative? Have you seen there’s an enthusiasm around that?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, definitely. Especially in 2020, you know, so last year was upside down year for a lot of nonprofits and a lot of businesses in general with COVID and stuff like that. So we, we moved to the virtual space really quickly in March last year. And because of that, we didn’t have to turn away any students. Firms were happy, students got a lot out of it. But when the George Floyd situation happened and the Black Lives Matter movement kind of kicked off, we happened to be the firm that was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. So a lot of financial services and fintech companies came to the table and said, listen, how can we help? And for us, it was open up your doors, help, you know, invest in our mission to get more students in the door. And we recruited easily maybe 30 or more new corporate partners in 2020, and that really spurred a huge you growth, know, trajectory for us and helped us start going national and even working with firms in London as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: And as far as the individuals themselves who go through the program, what kind of ways do you help them to enhance their social capital? Do you create or act as an affinity group? Do you provide training and maybe networking skills or just other supports that maybe go beyond the actual position?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, college students, when they get accepted to Greenwood, and the application process is pretty intense, pretty similar to like an investment bank because we understand that what we do is not for every student, so we’re very selective about who gets in. But once they’re in, the summer program is 10 weeks long for college students. The first 4 weeks It’s all training. For 40 hours a week for 4 weeks, they’re training with us. That’s hard and soft skills. We work with third-party providers who design, help us design our curriculum to teach them like how to evaluate a company. They’re in a stock pitch competition, but that’s only 40% of our curriculum. The rest of it is how do you be a good intern, how to be yourself at work, how to be at work. A lot of college kids are super smart, but nobody’s teaching them how to be at work. How to set up professional email, how to dress. We get them professional headshots, mock interviews, social media etiquette. We do a ton of workshops on that stuff because we want them to have some type of a foundation going into these firms for the summer and they can really hit the ground running. So 4 weeks upfront of training and then a 6-week internship at a firm that partners with us to take them. So yeah, soft skills is a huge part of what we’re doing. And social capital-wise, it’s really a ton of networking. They visit a different company every day for 6 weeks in the high school program. We did 66 virtual events last summer. We’ll probably do more this year. The whole point of that is for them to grow their network and meet more people who can open up doors for them potentially. At the end of the summer, social capital has increased dramatically. And we also, on our side, measuring that just to show the impact we’re having as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: And looking to the future now, what are your plans in terms of growing this? I know that you talked about expanding it beyond the US even.
Bevon Joseph: We have about 4 or 5 firms in London right now that we’ll have students working at this summer virtually and in person when the world finally opens up again. But for me, it’s always been about putting Greenwood Project in every major financial hub and city in the US and eventually across the world. Because I mean, even though we’ve helped about 300+ students so far in 5 years, there are thousands and thousands of kids out there who can use our help. And firms are also trying to be more diverse as well, and they’re looking for this talent, and we’re doing the work of finding it and getting them ready for these firms. So we’re serving two-sided market here as far as who we’re helping. So there was a recent study done by McKinsey that said in financial services it will take 29 years to reach racial parity as far as the makeup of the industry. And if we at Greenwood Project could shave a year or two off of that, I think that would be huge, but our goal is to disrupt the way diversity recruiting and diverse talent development is done in financial services. And if you look at the list of partners that we have, everywhere from prop shops to hedge funds to the big bulge firms, I mean, everybody’s coming on board realizing that the way we do it takes time. It’s an investment, it’s hard work, it doesn’t pay off like overnight. You might see they might have to take 2 or 3 internships for a student to get to the point where they can walk into a Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley and get through that interview process on their own. But firms won’t see, per se, a return on their investment for a couple summers when they partner with us because it does take a while because, again, a lot of systemic historic factors go into the why this population has been disconnected. But yeah, our goal is to really disrupt the way recruiting of diverse talent is done in finance.
Aoifinn Devitt: Going back now to the broader question of diversity in the investment world, when you mentioned that many firms got in touch in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd and during last summer’s social movements, which really, I think, triggered a lot of corporate statements. In my view, some diverse members of the financial community have been a little bit cynical about some of those gestures, that there’ve been a lot of corporate statements, a lot of pledges, a lot of maybe paying lip service to the idea of diversity, and they’ve seen this movie before. There’s sort of, well, what’s different this time? How do you kind of think about the diversity as it’s evolving in the financial services industry and whether it is different this time?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, I, I’ve heard on an almost daily basis some of these same sentiments. The way we look at it and the way I look at it is we tell firms, if you wanna be all in on this, if you’re serious about it, Why don’t you partner with us for 3 to 5 years, right? Show us a commitment to the process, show us a commitment to you understanding our mission, our purpose, the population we’re serving. Because to find diversity, especially for the financial services space, a lot of firms have tried, they’ve thrown a lot of money at it. They’ve gone to all the historically Black colleges and universities trying to recruit students. In many ways, the firms we work with and other firms, they can’t find the students that we find. And sometimes our students are at those same firms at certain colleges as well. But one way is to hold these firms accountable, and the serious ones are saying, “Okay, we’ll take a long-term investment in Greenwood, understanding how you’re serving these students and what you’re trying to achieve here.” So yes, there will be a lot of firms putting out statements and stuff like that, but we found a way to kind of weed out the ones who are serious and the ones who understand our mission and our goals. Again, holding them accountable and setting goals, for example, of X number of interns every summer at your firm, increasing that number over time with a goal of converting a percentage of them to full-time staff. So one of the main questions I ask companies is, is there a path towards a full-time opportunity here for our students? Because again, it’s not just a summer internship, it’s an actual career down the road, a career and a job that will have a ripple effect. On this young person’s life. So that’s some of the things that I’ve been seeing and the way I’m thinking about it when it comes to holding firms accountable and getting them committed to our mission.
Aoifinn Devitt: And it seems also that the battle is not won essentially when the person has got the full-time position. You ultimately want them to thrive there and there to be an environment that’s inclusive and that allows them to flourish. How do you work with those firms to create the inclusion part? Because it sometimes feels that that is a little more challenging than simply getting the numbers.
Bevon Joseph: I agree. I tell firms, listen, I could go get the talent, get them ready, bring them to your doorstep. It’s your job to keep them there. It’s your job to help them realize that they feel, you know, make them feel welcome, realize there’s a path forward, there’s upward mobility. We can’t be there with them every day and can’t be there with you every day to hold your hand, so to speak. So, One of the really key ingredients to our success has been employee resource groups at financial firms. Like, I look to partner with them first and say, listen, I will bring these young people to the firm. It’s your job to put your arms around them, make them feel welcome. Because retention, as we all know, is a big problem in financial services. A lot of Black and Latinx employees just go from firm to firm. There is no pipeline coming in. Individuals are just going from firm to firm. You’re so right when you talk about retention and inclusion. Making them feel welcome, making them feel like there’s people they can go to outside of their direct manager if they have questions. One way we do that, every intern gets a mentor at that firm that they’re working at, and the mentors are usually not their direct manager, and they meet with them on a weekly basis. They check in with Greenwood. If there’s anything going on, we collaborate on it and we resolve the issue. But it’s really about making the young people feel supported, welcome, included, And we also do mentor and volunteer training for the firms as well that are taking interns. So those individuals at the firm can fully understand who we’re serving, why they might need some extra handholding initially, and how to make this summer a success for both the firm and the young person. So the inclusion and feeling welcome at the firm is a big, big part of what we’re doing. Our alumni is very engaged and any support that they need, they always have Greenwood to come back to. And we’re supporting them. The student from 2017, he’s probably our longest full-time employee who’s gone out into the financial services space. He’s just got promoted. He’s in his third year. And again, I’m in touch with him all the time and he could come back if you have questions about how do I ask for a raise, or I’m looking to go to a different firm. You know, we are here to advise them and coach them, but those are some of the things that we do around the inclusion and kind of the retention part as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: Those are really excellent resources. So just going back to your personal story now, were there any setbacks or challenges that you really learned lessons from over the course of your career?
Bevon Joseph: I thought I could figure it out myself. And you know, when I look back to my time, like I was on Morgan Stanley’s trading floor, one of my first jobs, and I didn’t know that I needed a mentor. I didn’t know that I needed guidance. I was just trying to figure it out myself. I didn’t have a Greenwood Project. And I think in many senses, Greener Project exists to be the person or the organization I didn’t have myself and my wife didn’t have when we were starting our careers in financial services. We are helping the students avoid a lot of the mistakes that we made. We’re trying to break down some of those challenges and barriers that we faced on those floors as well. One of the biggest challenges was feeling like you didn’t belong because you didn’t see people who looked like you on the floor, you know, questioning whether I can do this, you know, I didn’t go to Ivy League school and The conversations that folks were having around me, I just didn’t feel like I fit in. Again, I’m an immigrant to this country, and I was really concerned about my accent, and I wouldn’t speak up. Now you just can’t shut me up at all. I think it’s really teaching young people, and me looking back as well at my time on the floors, of it’s okay to be yourself. It’s okay to ask questions. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to have a mentor. But again, I think Greenwood Project in many instances In my— when I think about it, it’s the organization I wish I had 20 years ago when I was starting my career because I would have been so much more ahead of the game and done so much more in my career. But I wouldn’t change a thing actually, because those 20 years helped me get to where I’m at and are key ingredients into the success of Greenwood Project, I think.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I know that you didn’t have a Greenwood Project, and that’s remarkable that you have now set up this huge organization to really address that. But who did you have? Who were some of the key people who maybe influenced you, not only in your career, maybe in life so far?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, I think my dad definitely, you know, he was an entrepreneur and had his own business and he also was an activist in Trinidad in what we call, so our version of the civil rights movement in the ’60s and ’70s was a Black Power movement in Trinidad and he was a very active participant in that. So I always saw him fighting for people. I always saw him giving back. I saw him running his own business And for me, I feel like the ultimate measure of my success will be the number of students I’m able to positively impact, right? Their lives. So, you know, every day I get up to do this Greenwood Project work, I think about the students. I think about, you know, how can I help them? I think about what firm I can get on board to help take more students. So, definitely my dad, number one. And then as I started my career, I developed mentors at firms that I worked at. Who saw something in me I probably didn’t see in myself and put me into leadership roles. And when I asked them like, why did you do that? They said they just saw my willingness to always give back, be a team player, help lead a team, take on responsibilities when nobody else wanted to. So I think at some of the firms I worked at, particularly Morgan Stanley and Chicago Trading Company, there were individuals who I worked for there who we’re still really good friends today and they are mentors of mine that I go back to. And then in the Greenwood Project, you know, last 5 years or so, John Rogers from Ariel Investments is somebody that is a mentor. Chris Gardner as well is a mentor of mine. And I ping those guys and talk to you them, know, every so often about what we’re doing and take their lead as well. So I think I just have gravitated to a lot of people who are passionate about this work, passionate about helping young people in particular. And those are the folks that I kind of look up to as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, certainly John Rogers has been mentioned more than once on this podcast. So that’s a testament to his influence that he has made such a difference. And what do you think about any maybe words of advice or gems of wisdom, words to live by that have guided you in your life and that you pass on? What would you say?
Bevon Joseph: I would say, you know, if I’m thinking about just my journey and how I ended up at Greenwood, you know, I was passionate about this thing for a long time, but passion only gets you so far. I say passion is my fuel, but execution is what gets me mileage because— you know, I went out to start this nonprofit never thinking in a million years that I would— this would be my full-time job 5 years later. But it took off so quickly, and I had to figure it out. You know, so I tell all young people that, you know, opportunity doesn’t go away, it just goes to the next person. So always be ready, stay ready. And we preach that over and over to our young people. Just always be ready. There’s so many things that we teach them about, you know, having an elevator pitch and having your resume ready. And if I call you and say, hey, I need you to interview on this date, be ready to go. So for me, it’s all about execution. Greenwood is growing much quicker than I expected, but we got to figure it out. You know, the opportunity is here. 2020 brought so many new firms to the table, significant funding, significant partnerships with many more firms breaking into the fintech space in a big way. There’s so much going on with Greenwood Project, but it’s great to grow fast, but it’s bad to grow fast in a bad way. So we’re building the capacity to handle the growth. I’m learning a lot. This is all new to me. I am learning on the job pretty much, but I’m surrounding myself with a board of directors and advisors who have done this before, who can guide me, can say, hey, you need to brush up on this area, you need to go back and do this kind of training or education or whatever. I’m always willing to learn. I’m always understanding that this process takes a while. It takes time and it’s going to take really hard work. So, To get to where we want to go is going to be an uphill climb, but I’m super ready. We’ve learned a lot from the last 5 years. I’m excited for the next 5.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really remarkable. My last question is any advice you might have for your younger self, maybe that young boy coming from Trinidad to the US? Is there anything that you know now that you wish you had known then?
Bevon Joseph: Yeah, I think I wish I had known that I needed to seek out people who I can lean on for advice and stuff like that. And also, being shy doesn’t get you anywhere. So I was afraid to speak up. I was scared to be myself almost. But I realized later on in life, like, those things are strengths, you know. Being so-called different is actually something I’m super proud of. If you get on a Zoom with me, there’s like pictures of Trinidad in the background, and there’s, you know, there’s all this stuff. I’m very proud of where I’m from. I look at it as like a superpower now as far as my so-called differences is back then I would tell myself, if you’re shy, get over it because that doesn’t get you anywhere. So don’t be scared to be yourself. People actually enjoy that. People actually ask me constantly where I’m from and I have to tell them about Trinidad and my background. You know, I go on Bloomberg TV and people can hear my accent and they know I’m from somewhere else. And I’m not ashamed of that anymore. I’m super proud of it. And I think my advice would just, you know, don’t be scared to be yourself because That’s the best person to be, actually.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, that really, I think, encapsulates the new language of diversity, that our differences really are our strengths. And I think you express that in such a beautiful way and with such authenticity. It is very insightful and very inspiring. Finally, I just wanted to comment just how really remarkable it is to take one experience of your own experience and that of your wife’s and to convert that in such an exponential way into the influence you’re having on hundreds of students. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of exponential effect, but it really just shows the power of an idea. And as you said, not just the idea, but persistence and excellent execution. So thank you so much. And on my behalf for what you’re doing for the industry, it’s very inspiring. And I wish you all the luck with it over the years ahead.
Bevon Joseph: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors on their personal journeys, Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
