As a founding partner and President of Reinventure Capital, Ed’s professional career has come full circle. An early pioneer in impact investing, he also has had careers as a real estate developer, business strategy consultant, interim CFO and now has re-entered the profession of venture capital with over 30 years of deep business development and venture capital experience and a track record of notable achievements.
Ed’s VC career began at age 25 and accelerated at age 27 when he became CEO of one of the larger venture capital firms in the nation, backed and mentored by such board directors as the CEO of Morgan Stanley and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of JP Morgan. As head of one of the earliest impact VC funds, he invested in growth industries to consciously expand business opportunities for entrepreneurs of color, achieving an IRR of 32% during its last decade.
In addition to generating a top quartile return, Ed also helped launch some of the nation’s most successful African American controlled companies, both private and public, and assisted them in attracting over $2 billion in conventional capital, while achieving 30% diversity among managers and employees and generating over 7,000 family supporting jobs.
Although his investment practice was national, Ed leveraged his successes as a VC to build bridges among disparate local business communities as an early advocate for and practitioner of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). As a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, he co-convened with the Bank several business leadership forums advocating more inclusive business practices. Expanding the effort after harvesting the venture funds, Ed partnered with the CEO of State Street Corporation to form The Business Collaborative (TBC), a unique business community initiative that dramatically increased the B2B sales volume among major corporations and businesses of color in Massachusetts.
Most recently Ed has responded to our nation’s current challenges, stemming from persistent racial, social and economic inequities, by forming Reinventure Capital. Once again he is targeting the vast, untapped reservoir of innovative, entrepreneurial talent, comprised of those of color and women consistently overlooked by the mainstream investment community. In so doing, Ed is implementing a proven contrarian investment playbook, as before, ensuring an impact rich return on capital AND inclusion. For more on Ed’s journey as a pioneering VC and lifelong advocate for racial equity, see his Ed Talks, first person accounts of his experience as a Black man in America.
Based in Boston, Ed is a graduate of Harvard College and Princeton University (MPA-UP, School of Public and International Affairs).
“I’m a proud papa of three children, all of whom have been bitten by one of the “bugs” that has smitten me. My son, Cyrus (Brown Univ., NYU Law), has the social justice bug and is a labor lawyer in New York City. My son, Langston (Brown Univ., Dartmouth MBA), has the entrepreneurial bug, and is pursuing it as Director of Operations for a scaling shared mobility business. My daughter, Chloe (Brown Univ., Oxford Univ., UK, MA Development Studies, Africa & Asia), has the economic justice bug and is pursuing it in Johannesburg, South Africa as VP of Commercial Strategy for a pioneering shared-value health insurance business. When I am not bragging about my children, I spend my time as a serious fitness buff, photographer, family genealogist and practitioner of Buddhism.”