Art Basel Partner UBS hosts the “Elevating Entrepreneurs” Panel
The discussion centered around transforming business investment so capital recipients mirror the demographics of the United States.
UBS, the leading partner in Art Basel Miami Beach for over 20 years, hosted a brunch and panel discussion with leading innovators across several industries to discuss a movement within the venture capital industry. Currently, innovators are working to transform business investment so capital recipients mirror the demographics of the United States. Leaders from fintech, healthtech and ed tech presented strategies they used to once grow their companies — Max Tuchman, Cofounder & CEO, Caribu has since sold her entity to Mattel — and initiatives they’re now employing so others can also achieve financial independence.
“People don’t want a handout,” says Wemimo Abbey, co-founder of Esusu – a company leveraging data to empower renters and improve property performance. “They want a fighting chance. The idea that you can do well and do good is by no means mutually exclusive.”
Panel moderator Errin Haines, who is Editor at Large at The 19th News, asked the group about making healthcare, education and tools for finance accessible to all. She suggested that seeing people’s humanity is a way to unlock tools to privilege for everyone.
“Humanity and dignity is something we’re all entitled to,” says Haines.
When it comes to scale and potential, says Cindy Blanco Ochoa, Cofounder, MiSalud – a virtual care platform providing affordable access to fully-bilingual US-licensed health professionals – it’s important to that equity issues be taken into account in policy making.
“We need to do fundamentally unleash the power of capital,” says Blanco Ochoa. “When it comes to intention and representation, we need to view the forest not the trees.”
UBS Elevating Entrepreneurs is the company’s signature initiative to level the playing field for underrepresented founders and accelerate their growth. UBS believes, according to a released statement, that entrepreneurship is a pathway to ownership, asset building and generational wealth, which has the potential to drive long-term, sustainable change.
This Art Week’s discussion was held in the UBS Lounge, featuring art works by Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Jeffrey Gibson, Alteronce Gumby, Kyungah Ham, Quisqueya Henríquez, Sarah Lai, Rick Lowe, Hugo McCloud, Amanda Williams and Nari Ward among others. Their work not only breaks boundaries in terms of experimentation, says UBS, but also engages powerfully with ideas like discrimination and the climate crisis, using art to create a positive impact in our communities.
Brett Graff is SocialMiami.com’s managing editor and has been a journalist covering money, people and power for over 20 years. Graff contributes to national media outlets including Reuters, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Maxim, and the PBS show, Nightly Business Report. A former U.S. government economist, her nationally syndicated column The Home Economist is first published in The Miami Herald and then on the Tribune Content Agency, where it’s available to over 400 publications nationwide. She is broadcast weekly on two iHeartRadio news shows and is the author of “Not Buying It: Stop Overspending & Start Raising Happier, Healthier, More Successful Kids,” a parenting guide for people who might be tempted to buy their children the very obstacles they’re trying to avoid.
