How This Book Can Help

Given the legacy of these financial industries, it is no wonder that the ethnic wealth gaps persist to the extent they do across the globe. The inequities that persist in society and the economy today can be redressed through the fairer distribution and allocation of venture capital and the potential for higher returns for the investors who choose to pursue the dividends that diversity offers.

This volume does not focus on the apportion of blame or reparations; that is a matter for a different forum. It seeks the commitment of those currently holding the purse strings, who have invariably profited off the backs of Black and Brown bodies, to make access to venture capital fair and inclusive going forward.

If and when, for instance, Black and Latinx people enter the venture capital market, and they are unable to progress beyond positions in which they have no decision making power or access to carry, are we recreating patterns where these groups work for the system without being able to profit from it? Black and Brown funds across the globe recount stories of being unable to close their funds. At the same time, their white male and, in more and more instances now, female counterparts regale in the successes of well-funded and well-supported ventures that provide returns.

How can we avoid repeating the same behavioral patterns unless we examine how they arose and are perpetuated?