Wall Street Bound Secures Strategic Partner for Diverse Trader Training Program
Jun 02, 2020, 11:16 ET
NEW YORK, June 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Troy Prince, a former Wall Street trader, now Founder and CEO of the nonprofit organization Wall Street Bound, Inc. (WSB) (www.wallstreetbound.org), is proud to announce that WSB has secured a strategic partnership agreement with the proprietary trading firm, Maverick Trading (www.mavericktrading.com). WSB and Maverick will work together to launch WSB's Diverse Trader Training Program.
The goal of the Diverse Trader Training Program is to recruit and train qualified minority candidates for front office careers in the finance industry by providing them a comprehensive technical knowledge base, live trading experience, mentorship and introduction to a structured network of employers committed to improving the diversity of their workforces.
Prince stated, "Breaking into the finance industry is hard enough, but it's doubly difficult for minority candidates. These candidates have the innate intelligence and hunger to succeed, but they are largely unaware of the job opportunities that exist on Wall Street, generally have not been exposed to the knowledge and information required to get a job in finance, and they certainly do not have the personal network or social capital required to get in the door, much less convince an employer to take a risk on an otherwise qualified applicant."
"The Wall Street Bound Diverse Trader Training Program will remove the perceived risk to potential employers. We will source highly motivated and qualified candidates, train, mentor and position them to develop track records of trading live capital. Once they've graduated from the program, their profit and loss statements and acquired portable credentials, become their CVs. This changes employer calculus completely, given the choice between two equally qualified candidates, our candidates will significantly stand out. When employers see that our candidates have already been rigorously trained and tested, the previously perceived risk is eliminated."
Over the past several months of fundraising outreach, the primary objection Prince has been hearing from potential donors was the question of how exactly he would be able to execute the program. Prince soon realized that building an in-house program from the ground up would be prohibitively expensive and a poor use of WSB's intellectual and limited financial resources. He stated, "I decided that rather than trying to re-create the wheel, WSB needed to find a partner with an established program. I began to research and reach out to proprietary trading firms and it soon became clear that if there was a prop firm that could help WSB achieve its goals at scale, it was Maverick Trading. Maverick has the most comprehensive training program that I've seen out there and a structured coaching program that, in addition to our mentorship, I knew would be a cornerstone in the success of WSB's candidates."
Within the WSB and Maverick Trading relationship, WSB will source and screen qualified diverse candidates for acceptance into its program, provide industry credentials training as well as ongoing support and mentoring. Maverick Trading will be responsible for candidate technical training and preparation for live trading. Once the candidates have passed Maverick's internal Qualification Program, they will have access to the firm's capital to trade and manage.
Maverick's CEO, Darren Fischer, stated, "We looked at creating an experimental program similar to what Troy described as his vision for WSB, but we shelved it because we didn't have the structures in place for outreach, life coaching, and employer networking that would be needed to sustain that kind of program. WSB has those structures in place which now allows us to provide the training and coaching WSB's candidates will need to successfully complete our rigorous training program."
Fischer continued, "I'm really glad that Troy reached out to me when he did. At Maverick, we feel that the best way to improve the economic participation of any demographic and create pathways to generational wealth is to teach and equip them to trade and invest in the markets. This belief is reflected in the firm's motto: Empowering the World, One Trader at a Time."
The Diverse Trader Training Program is free to its participants with corporate donors funding the training and operations. Once participants complete Maverick's requirements, they are permitted to trade the firm's capital and will keep between 70% and 80% of the profits they generate. Maverick has even agreed to absorb losses in excess of the Performance Bonds participants post in order to give them greater opportunity to achieve future success.
As participants graduate from the year-long program, WSB's corporate donors will have access to a ready pool of vetted, trained and experienced diverse candidates, available for hire.
Prince stated, "Institutional investors and the finance industry as a whole are increasingly putting pressure on their outside asset managers, advisors, banks and investment banks, et cetera, to make commitments to diversity in their workforces, and asset managers and others are listening but they generally do not know exactly how to go about accomplishing it. WSB provides these asset managers and other industry players with an available pool of "de-risked" diverse talent, that have the technical knowledge base and trading experience that the asset managers themselves would normally have to impart on new hires."
"We've really designed this program so that everyone wins. The diversity desires of investors are met, the asset managers and other industry players deliver while reducing the time to payback associated with new hires, and program participants are better equipped to make entrée into an industry where they have been historically under-represented. Rather than asking donors for a handout, we're presenting them with an opportunity to make a charitable investment that's in their own self-interest."
The WSB mission as expressed by its tagline of "Creating a path to Wall Street for urban youth" clearly aligns with the emerging trend of Impact Investing and presents itself to potential donors as a startup would to Venture Capital investors. WSB will seek slates of donations to achieve specific milestones and report the metrics of its efforts to its donors. Currently, WSB is soliciting $500,000 from donors to fund Proof of Concept of its Diverse Trader Training Program. In this Proof of Concept phase, WSB will sponsor a cohort of 20 participants to complete the program and report the impact and efficacy of the program after one year. Its next planned phase is to expand the program to a 20-participant cohort per quarter and report the impact and outcomes of program participants. Follow-on stages include geographic expansion and endowment funding for self-sufficiency.
Prince explained, "Within traditional charitable organizations, 50% or more of management's time is spent seeking donations. It's incredibly inefficient. Seeking block donations to achieve measurable milestones allows us to prove our effectiveness to our donors and justify future donations. Since our donor base comes from the finance industry itself, we're able to have frank and concrete conversations speaking the same language and looking to achieve the same goals."
About Wall Street Bound – Wall Street Bound is an IRS recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in New York City with a mission to discover, train and mentor urban talent for careers in finance. Based on the simple premise that talent and IQ are equally distributed but opportunity is not, we operate with the belief that increased opportunities for qualified but under-represented minorities in the finance industry can be a force for scalable and sustainable community change.
About Maverick Trading – Founded in 1997, Maverick Trading is a premier proprietary trading firm with trading divisions in stocks/options and foreign currencies. Maverick offers training, support, supervision, and capital to its traders and enjoys the highest trader retention rate in the industry.
Media Contacts:
Maverick Trading
Joe Jensen
[email protected]
940-217-5826
Wall Street Bound
Troy Prince
646-420-3770
[email protected]
SOURCE Maverick Trading; Wall Street Bound
