N.C. A&T Alumni Times

N.C. A&T Alumni Selected as Black Enterprise’s “BE Modern Man 100 Honorees”

In August 2018, Torrence Reed ’05 and Jamerus Payton ’06, ’07 were featured on Black Enterprise online for the “BE Modern Man” edition for their company, HBCU Wall Street, LLC. According to Black Enterprise, BE Modern Man is an integrative program that honors the essence, image, and accomplishments of today’s man of color. The program highlights leaders, executives, creatives, students, politicians, entrepreneurs, professionals, and agents of change through the power of storytelling.

“Being featured in Black Enterprise has been a surreal feeling and as business owners it is such an honor to be highlighted for our hard work and commitment to HBCU Wall Street,” they explained.

HBCU Wall Street, LLC mission is to be the solution for increasing financial literacy, starting with the nation's historically black colleges and universities. The company was co-founded by Reed and Payton in April 2015 and was developed through their passion for teaching communities about financial management.

In 2005, Reed received his bachelor’s degree in management information systems, and Payton received two bachelor’s degrees in manufacturing systems and electronic and computer technology in 2006 and 2007 from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

“After college, we founded a start up together in 2011, Growtuity, Inc., that focused on teaching students how to start a business while in college. However, after operating for a few years, we didn’t feel like this was the right direction for us because the program was based in Greensboro, N.C. and we were growing in our careers. So we decided to start an Instagram page to post financial tips and we really didn’t realize how successful the page was going to be until our followers increased,” said Payton”

Within six months, HBCU Wall Street gained 20,000 followers on Instagram and the co-founders created a community group on GroupMe that grew to 1,000 members who were all interested in financial literacy.

“We knew we had something special and that it was important for us to turn this into a business because the conversations were shifting about wealth,” said Reed. “Our virtual community soon evolved into people meeting at mixers in Washington, D.C. and Raleigh, N.C., planning networking events and panel discussions. Our company eventually started doing tours at HBCUs on the east coast.”

HBCU Wall Street college tours currently implement seminars on campus that teach students about finances, credit card, credit score management, reducing student loan cost and entrepreneurship. The company also offers the following financial services to help students increase their cash flow through various ecosystems such as hiring students to be movers, providing tax services, real estate and life insurance. In addition, the company website now allows visitors to join as new members to gain access to financial resources.

“Our company has received numerous testimonies from our members who have paid off credit card debt, boosted their credit scores and invested in rental properties,” said Payton.

HBCU Wall Street currently works with a team of professionals who are all HBCU graduates and specialize in key areas such as nonprofit management, moving companies, real estate, apparel, event planning and programming, business development and operations.

In the future, HBCU Wall Street, LLC plans to create chapters on every HBCU campus and to launch a national financial literacy tour.

For more information, visit www.hbcuwallstreet.com.