A Lifelong Passion for Justice

LAANE Advisory Boardmember Tracy Gray’s Activist Roots Go Back to Childhood

LAANE Advisory Boardmember Tracy Gray credits conversations with her father, a Vietnam veteran, for opening her eyes to economic justice issues. “I remember back in the 70s he talked about race, opportunity and the economic implications of race.” He saw the armed forces as the only pathway to economic self-sufficiency for many Americans, Tracy remembers. “Even though I was a child, this planted a seed and eventually inspired me to work toward what I call ‘creating equitable wealth’—bringing access to wealth to women and minorities.”

Decades later, Tracy heads Collaborative Equity Partners, a venture catalyst consulting firm focused on the emerging domestic market, and is serving in L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s administration as Special Advisor for Capital Formation. Formerly LAANE’s Director of Retail Policy, she joined the Advisory Board in 2008 after completing her M.B.A. program.

Before joining LAANE, Tracy worked for a venture capital fund, as a business development consultant in the music and digital media industries and as a systems engineer with the Space Shuttle program.

How did you first get involved with LAANE?

I saw an ad for a research position at LAANE and immediately applied as I wanted to learn more about economic development policy. Prior to LAANE, I worked at a venture capital firm and did some research around economic development incentives for our portfolio companies. The more I got into economic development, the more I wanted to learn. I felt the perfect place to do that was through a policy organization whose aim was to create an equitable playing field.

There isn’t another organization that is as strategic as LAANE. The work LAANE does impacts people across the country—across the world, actually, as I’ve met people overseas who knew about LAANE. Our reach is further than Los Angeles so I always want to stay involved with LAANE. The respect people have for LAANE travels with you, and I want to give back because LAANE has helped me with my career. Plus, it’s home.

What did you do once you left LAANE?

I wanted to start my own fund because when I was at the venture capital firm, I very rarely saw women and minority entrepreneurs pitching their companies. When I would hang out with venture capitalists, no one looked like me. I only knew of a handful of other people of color and none were focused on technology where the “big money” was being made. All the wealth was being created in a shrinking market, which is against every sound business model out there. It seemed like a lack of knowledge more than anything else—on the part of the VCs and minority entrepreneurs. So I saw an opportunity in the growing market of women and people of color. I wanted to be the catalyst that changed this.

I thought my digital media and technology background, along with my knowledge of economic development policy, would give me an advantage. But I needed to go to business school. With an eclectic professional background and the fact that I’m a woman of color, I felt I couldn’t just go to any school. Having a degree from a Top 10 business school is very important in venture capital circles, so I decided to get two! The Columbia/U.C. Berkeley program was the perfect fit. The Berkeley side focused on entrepreneurship and social issues, while Columbia focused on finance. We had an international seminar class where I traveled to India to study the entertainment industry and microfinance, and to Argentina to study macro and microeconomics in the different industries in Latin America.

How did your experience of business school compare with your time at a nonprofit such as LAANE?

When I first worked at LAANE, business was often our opponent, but I felt there were ways to work with business and there were best practices in business that nonprofits could also benefit from (and vice versa). Business is about making money, and, right or wrong, in this country money is power. LAANE is about empowering communities—organizing is about power. In business school, I kind of did the opposite by trying to show my classmates the importance and economic value of adding a social screen to business decisions. I think I was somewhat successful at doing both.

What other organizations are you involved with?

I’m on the board of Create:Fixate, an arts organization aimed at increasing access to the arts and to emerging artists. I’m also a board member of the Lin Cole Foundation, an environmental organization, and I’m joining the board of Global Girl Media, a nonprofit that helps young girls around the world express themselves and their ideas through digital media.

Was there an activist who inspired you while growing up, and who is the most inspiring to you today?

Growing up, I’d say Martin Luther King, Jr. and JFK. The whole civil rights movement was an inspiration and so those leaders stand out. Today, it’s Bishop Desmond Tutu because he combines activism and a sense of humor. I remember seeing him as an undergrad at U.C. Santa Barbara. The anti-apartheid movement inspired me during college to become an activist—and of course, Mandela was important to me, too. But there was Bishop Tutu making me laugh in the middle of all that horror. He’s incredible.

What can you tell us about yourself that people might not know?

I’ve traveled to 30 countries. I spoke Japanese as a child. I do a new thing every week. With my MBA program, I’d had this amazing year and I was afraid I’d have nothing to look forward to, and I wanted to keep that energy alive and have something to be excited about. So I decided to do something new every week—I’ve fire-danced, taken an improv class, learned to use power tools and walked across the L.A. River bridges. It’s been an amazing experience and it’s made me much more present in how I relate to everything and everyone. If you’re truly present, you find you’re doing new things all the time and you see all the wonder that’s out there.