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Excerpt from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Mirtha Donastorg
June 19, 2023
The AltFinance program began two years ago at Clark Atlanta, Howard, Morehouse and Spelman
Kareem Michel has had an itch to work and earn money since he was a kid. Born in Haiti, he moved at the age of 4 to Marietta, where his father drives for Uber and his mother runs a cleaning business.
When he was younger, Michel used to save the money he got as presents and sell water bottles on the corner. Now, the new Morehouse College graduate is moving to Los Angeles to work in private equity — a dream he achieved thanks to a multimillion-dollar program.
In June 2021, three investment firms banded together to launch the $90 million AltFinance project to open more pathways for students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities to enter the alternative investment industry.
Two years later, the fruits of that effort are starting to show through Michel and 13 other young men and women, the first group of students to go through the program and graduate.
“I think AltFinance really is where the bulk of my knowledge about the (alternative) industry overall came from,” Michel told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He said he was able to be exposed to an area of finance that is not often talked about, particularly in the Black communities where he comes from.
The graduates in this first AltFinance class are from Morehouse, Spelman College and Howard University. Before leaving school last month, all but one of the students had jobs lined up at alternatives firms, in consulting or investment banking. The fourteenth is going to graduate school.
The investment firms behind the initiative are Apollo Global Management, Ares Management (co-founded by Atlanta Hawks principal owner Tony Ressler), and Oaktree Capital Management. Each pledged to give $3 million a year for 10 years to fund the program, a contribution that represents less than 0.02% of their respective assets under management.
AltFinance initially launched at Clark Atlanta University, Howard, Morehouse and Spelman. It has since expanded to multiple other HBCUs across the country.
Cover image: Kareem Michel, an economics major at Morehouse. Michel is part of AltFinance's first cohort to graduate. CHRISTINA MATACOTTA FOR THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
