Episode 88: Bevon Joseph: Unleashing the Power of Social Capital

Bevon Joseph is co-founder of the Greenwood project, which is an organization that connects Black and LatinX students with career opportunities in financial services and fin-tech.  He previously held a series of roles in investment banks and other financial service firms, mainly in trading management functions. He is an advisory board member at the DePaul Career Center and is a graduate of the GS 10,000 small business program. 

Our conversation starts with Bevon's upbringing in Trinidad, his move to the US and his early career when he admitted that one of the biggest challenges was not having mentors or being connected to the industry because he lacked the social capital that some others had. He said he had to figure out things on his own, which was a challenge and a relatively steep learning curve.

Later in his career he realized that he had the potential to bridge this gap for the next generation of Black and Latin-x students by creating the kind of infrastructure that many of them lacked.  He set up the Greenwood Project with his wife Elois Joseph (whose podcast is to follow in Series 4, 2021) with the goal of reaching as many students as possible and bridging the lack of opportunity and exposure, because talent was not lacking. The Greenwood Project is intended to act almost like a market maker broker between firms and diverse candidates by getting them ready and bringing them to their doorsteps. 

Bevon describes the mission as being bigger than just the internship, how it is to teach black and Latin x students that they can start building generational wealth starting with themselves. 

There is more information about the Greenwood Project at greenwoodproject.org.

This series was made possible by the kind support of MainStreet 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.