Black Professionals In Private Equity & Finance – Dealmaker Spotlight: Alex King

The following series features interviews with Black dealmakers and trailblazers in the private equity and finance community.

Q: What attracted you to PE and venture capital?

Alex King: My pathway to private equity and, more significantly, venture capital was part of my entrepreneurial journey. That journey started when I was in high school. I was an avid reader of BusinessWeek and Forbes. I was always attracted to those who put capital to work to launch innovative companies that changed industries, impacted local economies and scaled globally. I always wondered why I didn’t see more people who looked like me — more African Americans — doing this kind of work.

I worked at a family-run law firm when I was in high school. One of the attorneys there, Ronald J. Pressley, always challenged me to further my reading. He gave me a book, “Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?” It’s about Reginald F. Lewis. The autobiography was one of the books that inspired me to strongly consider building businesses with private capital. Far too often, we fail to realize the impact of positive reinforcement through profiles of people who share a similar background. Many of my fellow African American peers reference this book as a catalyst in their professional journey.

At the same time, I was fascinated by Warren Buffett. I think the book I read at the time was “The Warren Buffett Way.” I also read “Black and White on Wall Street,” the autobiography on Joseph Jett. I was taken by the overall investment industry. One of the individuals who inspired me is a former founder and managing partner of Upfront Ventures, Mark Suster. He has a blog, “Both Sides of the Table.” When I was co-running my second startup, we constantly listened to Mark Suster and others like Fred Wilson, Chris Dixon and Brad Feld, to name a few, to get insights into the startup ecosystem and how venture capitalists thought about investing in early-stage companies.

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