Marcus Shaw has over 20 years of experience in finance and nonprofit. Shaw is the founder of Montgomery Techlab, a firm that helps to accelerate technological careers in Montgomery, Alabama. In addition, he was the CEO of a nonprofit called The Company Lab, that supported entrepreneurial growth in Tennessee. As CEO of AltFinance, Shaw is working to launch a virtual institute for The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2022.
How would you describe your mission with AltFinance?
AltFinance is a new initiative established to help HBCU students find pathways into alternative finance. Alternative finance is the field of finance outside of common stocks, common bonds, or cash, private equity, private debt, real estate, etc. These are places where there are trillions of dollars being invested into the market. It is really providing tens, if not hundreds of millions of jobs across the United States.
What is the deficit?
It’s no secret that Black folks are having hard times finding career paths, particularly career paths for leadership in business. We’ve seen it in technology and on Wall Street. And one place where we’ve seen it for a number of years, but haven’t had a solution is the world of alternative finance. That’s particularly interesting because many of us don’t have people in our family or our lives that are running private equity companies or going out and buying companies wholesale.
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