For most of my professional life, I worked in the financial services industry.
From working within the Deep South network of good old boys to the fast-paced world of Wall Street, I’ve seen how money and power move through the world. Even more importantly, I’ve seen how they shape how we work, live, and even how we think.
I took the long road to get to this chapter in my life.
My story is driven more by a combination of serendipity and grit than by planning. After flunking out of college the early 1980s, I became one of the first African American finance professionals in my home state of Arkansas.
A decade later, I launched the first Black-owned investment bank in the state’s history. By the early 2000s, I was one of only a handful of African Americans to manage a Wall Street trading desk.
After leaving New York City, I began my career as a writer by analyzing the capital markets landscape, using the skills I gained from managing trading desks to decode the challenges of the emerging financial technologies.
My research on fintech, blockchain technology, and high-frequency trading has been cited in Investor's Business Daily, STAT News, books on digital finance, and by think tanks.
During the pandemic, I decided to move beyond finance. I needed to make sense of a world that seemed to be moving more and more out of control with each passing year.
What began as scattered thoughts evolved into The Journeyman: a space for analysis, reflection, and unfiltered perspectives.
There are no easy answers. Just better questions.
Here, you’ll find stories about politics, power, race, and culture; storytelling through the lens of someone who questions conventional wisdom. But this newsletter is about more than markets and trading desks. It’s an about truth-telling from someone who’s been in the arena.
By subscribing to The Journeyman, you'll have access to essays that dig beneath the surface, challenge narratives, and honor the journey of learning, unlearning, and growing.
Welcome to the conversation. The road ahead may be long, but I promise you, the walk is worth it.
