Collaborating to Diversify the City's Broker-Dealer Pool

FINANCE THE CITY OF GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN Historically, minority-, woman-, and/or veteran-owned business enterprises [MWVBEs] have not played a significant role in the City of Grand Rapids' investment portfolio, but as the result of an intentional effort to seek out 1 hese firms, approximately 30 percent of the city's investment portfolio is now sourced from broker-dealer firms owned by people of color, women, and/or veterans. John Globensky, the city treasurer, said that he first started thinking about ways to diversify the city's pool of broker-dealers when thenCity Commissioner Joe Jones [now president and chief executive officer of consulting firm The Hekima Group] brought the idea to him in 2017. [...]quite often, it's a very homogenous group of contractors, suppliers, and vendors, and so I thought this was a really big deal. OFFICE OF EQUITY AND ENGAGEMENTJOE JONESFORMER CITY COMMISSIONERJOHN GLOBENSKYCITY TREASURERLEVI BOLDTINVESTMENT ANALYST Boldt said that he and Glcbensky have also reviewed the city s investment policy to identify any barriers that might exist for additional MWVBE broker-dealer firms that would like to do business with the city, and they identified a few parts of their policy that favored larger firms.