United Church Funds is deeply committed to a platform of investment funds that values, prioritizes and benefits from diverse-owned asset managers. To that end, UCF has set industry-leading benchmarks for hiring diverse managers and holding all managers accountable for their own commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion across their firms. Currently, over 60% of UCF’s domestic equities are managed by diverse asset managers, and we are continuing our efforts to achieve at least 60% diverse management across our entire domestic portfolio, with an emphasis on Black-owned and/or Black-managed firms.
As part of our celebration of Black History Month, we are pleased to feature one of those firms, Auldbrass Partners of New York, one of the private equity managers in our Alternatives and Alternatives Balanced Funds.
Stacey Pettice, UCF’s Executive for Institutional Relationships, sat down with two of Auldbrass’s chief executives – Howard Sanders, Founder and Managing Director, and Christopher Salley, Managing Director. The two men have been friends for 40 years, having both attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where they pledged and became brothers of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. They spoke to Stacey about finding success in a field where Black professionals have been historically underrepresented, as well as the Black leaders who have inspired them along the way.