Former U.S. Treasury Official C. Earl Peek, Announces Racial Justice Fund Formation Via Diamond Ventures
Former U.S. Treasury official who leads dialogue with the U.S. Treasury for asset management and venture capital for blacks, women, and minorities announces racial justice fund. In talks with the U.S Treasury to use the CARES Act to help small businesses left behind by Covid-19.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Former U.S. Treasury Official, C. Earl Peek, has been breaking barriers in racial justice, access to capital, and asset management for black, women, and minority firms for over decade after Diamond Ventures became a Small Business Administration (SBA) Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) in formation. Peek was appointed as a Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S. Treasury where he was a voting member on investment committees that invested more than $6 billion into venture capital, loan funds, minority and community banks, and Community Development Fund Institution (CDFI) investments. Peek co-led a key U.S. policy change, adopted by the Secretaries of the Treasury, Labor, and Commerce to allow black, women, and minority firms to manage assets of the United States pension funds and engage in broker-dealer activities for USA.
"I've always cared for the underserved and forgotten black, women, and veteran owned businesses starting with my roles as a Senior Lending Officer with Invest Atlanta, VP with minority owned Industrial Bank (Washington, DC), BB&T (now Truist), and then at the U.S. Treasury," said Peek. Peek has completed more than 1,000 financings in community development, banking, and as a Treasury official. The State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI), where Peek was one of four members of an investment committee, was arguably the U.S. Treasury's most successful capital deployment program for small businesses and community banks. A 2017 Treasury report stated that the SSBIC program, formed under the JOBS ACT, leveraged $1.5 billion into $10.7 billion into new financing to small businesses, providing $8.95 in new financing for every $1 of SSBCI funds and helped created or save more than 240,000 jobs. Peek estimates that the SSBCI program has now impacted more than $15 billion in capital formation, follow-on financings, and created or saved over 250,000 jobs.
Peek, who has dialogued frequently with current Senior Treasury officials with direct access to Secretary Mnuchin, noted, "the current Treasury officials have been very receptive to suggestions of how to leverage his authority in the CARES Act into a national business loan and possibly equity fund, akin to the SSBCI program".
COVID-19 has decimated access to capital for black banks, minority led capital managers and black businesses who were already in need of a capital infusion before the Coronavirus pandemic. Numerous reports from the Kauffman, Rockefeller, and Pew Foundations have highlighted the lack of access to capital for minorities, women, and Veterans. "We applaud PayPal, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Intel, Microsoft, Amazon and so many leading corporations on establishing or investing in racial equity and justice funds. We look forward to an engagement with these and other institutions on how to leverage their commitment with the U.S. Treasury and Congress for solutions for now and 2021." Peek believes that there are solutions now that appeal to both sides of the aisle and can help America's heartbeat-small businesses.
About Diamond Ventures. Diamond Ventures was formed to provide capital, lending, and capital formation primarily to minority, women, and underserved firms. Please see http://www.dvfcap.com for more information. More on C. Earl Peek at https://www.linkedin.com/in/c-earl-peek-cpa-0017836/.
SOURCE Diamond Ventures
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