Shundrawn Thomas discusses capital disparities and equity retention challenges faced by diverse entrepreneurs in the lower middle market.
Insight
Thomas: Business equity ownership is the single biggest driver to solve wealth inequality
“Let's be clear. The single biggest way that you change the differential of the wealth equation in this country or any developed nation is ownership, equity, ownership in scalable, saleable businesses.”
Insight
Thomas: Internship diversity programs fail without diverse representation at executive levels
“I just don't fundamentally believe it's enough for firms to say, we really want to change our diversity, so our starting point and our focus is going to be the establishment or expansion of our internship programs. Now, let me be clear. I'm big on internship p…”
Assertion Supported
Thomas: Emerging private market managers outperform on average despite fewer assets
“One of the counterintuitive things in private markets is I have invested a fair amount with emerging managers. Now, the irony is empirically, it says it makes sense. Like on average, even though they have a lot less in the way of assets, they outperform, but i…”
Insight
Thomas: Leaders must be color aware rather than colorblind
“I know that people of good intent and goodwill will say things like I'm colorblind. And I know what they mean by that, but the reality is we're not really colorblind. At our best, we actually, if we want to use the term color, we need to be color aware, becaus…”
Insight
Thomas: Leaders must intervene directly when hiring processes fail to yield diversity
“If you're in a culture, and despite the best efforts to expand opportunity, and despite changing the processes, you're not getting better outcomes. It ultimately then falls on the leader to make some decisions, to, from time to time, actually put the thumb on …”
Insight
Thomas: Corporate Charity Cannot Remotely Solve Systemic Inequity
“Charitable intent is a good thing. But charity will not remotely solve the issue we have. And the issue that we have is not that we have not been charitable enough. The issue that we have is we have not taken accountability for the inequities that our consciou…”