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Derrius Quarles | |
|---|---|
 Quarles speaking at TED Conference Headquarters in 2017 | |
| Born | Derrius L. Quarles |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Kenwood Academy Morehouse College (B.A.) University of Pennsylvania (M.S.Ed) |
| Website | www |
Derrius Quarles is an American businessperson. [1] [2] [3]
Quarles was born on the South Side of Chicago in 1990. He graduated from Kenwood Academy High School in 2009.
While in high school, he secured over 1.1 million dollars in scholarship awards before graduating leading to his being described "a million dollar scholar" in the Chicago Tribune . [4] [5]
He went on to attend and graduate cum laude from Morehouse College writing a thesis on the United States' child welfare system and inequities in outcomes for Black foster youth. [6]
Quarles is the Co-Founder and former Chief Executive Officer of BREAUX Capital [7] [8] [9] and Million Dollar Scholar, an education social enterprise as well as the Founder of DQ and Partners. [10]
In 2013, Derrius was invited to the White House, where he was awarded the Points of Light Daily Points of Light Award from President Barack Obama for his education activism with Million Dollar Scholar. [11] [12]
Derrius is Co-Founder and former Chief Executive Officer of BREAUX Capital, a financial technology platform focused on black men. [13] [14] BREAUX started after a conversation between Derrius and Ras Asan Olugbenga in 2015.[ citation needed ] In May 2016, BREAUX Capital secured a grant from the National Science Foundation's I-Corps Program to perform market research and collect data on the overall financial wellness of Black millennials and the factors that impact the ability of Black millennials to be financially healthy. [15]
In 2017 he was featured on the Black Enterprise List of 100 Modern Men and named an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at TED through the TED Residency Program. [16] [17] As a part of the residency, Derrius wrote and delivered the TED Talk "How banks are failing African-Americans". [18]
In April 2018, Inc. magazine included Derrius and BREAUX Capital co-founder Ras Asan on its list of 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs, highlighting their innovative business model of engaging Black male millennials to automate their savings for long-term asset accumulation. [19] [20]
Morehouse College is a private, historically Black, men's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. Anchored by its main campus of 61 acres (25 ha) near Downtown Atlanta, the college has a variety of residential dorms and academic buildings east of Ashview Heights. Along with Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and the Morehouse School of Medicine, the college is a member of the Atlanta University Center consortium.
Spelman College is a private, historically Black, women's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a founding member of the Atlanta University Center academic consortium. Founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, Spelman awarded its first college degrees in 1901 and is the oldest private historically Black liberal arts institution for women.
John Hope, born in Augusta, Georgia, was an American educator and political activist, the first African-descended president of both Morehouse College in 1906 and of Atlanta University in 1929, where he worked to develop graduate programs. Both are historically Black colleges.
Benjamin Elijah Mays was an American Baptist minister and American rights leader who is credited with laying the intellectual foundations of the American civil rights movement. Mays taught and mentored many influential activists, including Martin Luther King Jr, Julian Bond, Maynard Jackson, and Donn Clendenon, among others. His rhetoric and intellectual pursuits focused on Black self-determination. Mays' commitment to social justice through nonviolence and civil resistance were cultivated from his youth through the lessons imbibed from his parents and eldest sister. The peak of his public influence coincided with his nearly three-decade tenure as the sixth president of Morehouse College, a historically black institution of higher learning, in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Yale School of Management is the graduate business school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. The school awards the Master of Business Administration (MBA), MBA for Executives (EMBA), Master of Advanced Management (MAM), Master's Degree in Systemic Risk (SR), Master's Degree in Global Business & Society (GBS), Master's Degree in Asset Management (AM), and Ph.D. degrees, as well as joint degrees with nine other graduate programs at Yale University. The Yale School of Management is one of six Ivy League Business Schools.
Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) is an independent and private historically-Black medical school in Atlanta, Georgia. Originally a part of Morehouse College, the school became independent in 1981.
Robert Michael Franklin Jr. is an American author, theologian, ordained minister, and academic administrator who served as the tenth president of Morehouse College from 2007 to 2012. Franklin is a visiting scholar in residence at Stanford University's Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. In January 2014, he became director of the religion program at the Chautauqua Institution.
IntraFi, LLC, is a privately held firm with a network of more than 3,000 financial institutions, three-quarters of all U.S. commercial banks and thrifts as members. Among its members are 23 of 25 top U.S. banks and 95% of all U.S. community banks. The company’s headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia.
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Ras Asan Olugbenga, born as Derric James Studamire in Cleveland, Ohio (1990) is the co-founder of BREAUX and Company, a private equity social enterprise that is the majority shareholder and operator of BREAUX Capital, Million Dollar Scholar, DQ and Partners, and Techgroove Fest.
Blavity is an American digital media company and website based in Los Angeles targeting black millennials. Their mission is to "economically and creatively support Black millennials across the African scape, so they can pursue the work they love, and change the world in the process."
Nium is a Singapore-headquartered cross-border payments company. Initially founded by Prajit Nanu and Michael Bermingham, and launched as a consumer-remittance platform Instarem in 2014. In 2016, the company introduced its B2B payments platform and rebranded as Nium in 2019, subsequently elevating Pratik Gandhi to co-founder in 2021. However, Gandhi left Nium in October 2023, around the time Nium's Chief Product Officer also left the company and Nium announced a layoff of over 10% of its global staff.
Afua Osei is an entrepreneur, investor and public speaker who co-founded She Leads Africa, a media company for millennial African women.
The Barack Obama Foundation is a Chicago-based nonprofit organization founded in 2014. It oversees the creation of the Barack Obama Presidential Center, runs the My Brother's Keeper Alliance, and operates a scholarship program through the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy.
Brex Inc. is an American financial service and technology company that offers business credit cards and cash management accounts to technology companies. Brex cards are business charge cards, which require at least $50,000 in a bank account if professionally invested, if not with $100,000 to open, and cardholders who default won't damage their personal credit or assets. Emigrant Bank issues the Brex cards.
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Robert Thomas Greenfield IV is an American businessman, activist, philanthropist and former college athlete. He is the founder of the financial technology company Umoja Labs, formerly known as Emerging Impact, and serving as the former Head of Social Impact of ConsenSys, co-founded its philanthropic arm, ConsenSys Social Impact.
Angel Rich is an African American tech entrepreneur and author.
The Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation (OWCF) is a United States-based philanthropic foundation dedicated to support education, women, museums, community development, disaster relief, and other charitable endeavors. Established by television host and producer Oprah Winfrey, the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation has distributed millions of dollars to charities around the world.
