Kesha Cash '10: Playing the Hand You're Dealt - The Road to Launching Impact America Fund

Summary: Growing up in a low-income household in Orange County had a big impact on the life work of Kesha Cash '10; she recalls using food stamps to buy groceries and scavenging for spare change from the couch cushions to make ends meet. Fast-forward to Columbia Business School, where she concentrated on social impact investing: upon graduating, she founded the minority-focused initiative Jalia Ventures, and then in 2013 she founded the lower-income-focused Impact America Fund, where she is currently the general partner. “I’m glad I attended business school as an older student, applying with a very clear vision in mind as to why I wanted to attend business school and what I wanted to get out of it,” she says. In this episode, Cash talks about finding her identity (6:44), leaving Wall Street (19:05), earning an MBA (25:45), starting Impact America Fund (32:20), and investing in lower-income communities (43:00). It’s all part of her mission today to transform the economic livelihoods of marginalized communities in America. “I really do feel like my purpose here is to figure out how to give more people access to upward mobility,” says Cash, who was named by Essence magazine in 2017 as one of 50 Black Women Founders to Watch.