AASU copresident Torarie Durden (MBA ‘04) congratulates W. Dwight Raiford (MBA ‘78), who received the Bert King Award for Service to the Community at this year’s conference. Raiford is chairman of the Little League Baseball International Board of Directors Photo by Stuart Cahill

Investment in the inner city can reap social rewards, but there’s real money to be made as well, agreed panelists at the 32nd annual H. Naylor Fitzhugh Conference. Named for Fitzhugh (MBA ’33), one of the School’s first African-American alumni, the conference was sponsored by the HBS African-American Student Union.

Growing opportunities and competitive advantages have made the inner city a hot spot for investors, particularly developers. “Real estate is a $24 trillion industry — there’s no bubble there,” said Yvonne B. Haskins, a senior manager and underwriter at Fannie Mae.

For those looking for business prospects outside of real estate, Lloyd M. Metz (MBA ’96) of ICV Capital Partners recommended investments based on intellect rather than physical capital, such as health care and software. Ventures that have low distribution costs and are scalable independent of office space and people are smart moves. “Think about transaction processing,” he counseled. “That’s measured in bits and bytes, not square footage.”

There are also opportunities for people who want to build businesses of size, said James H. Lowry (PMD 25, 1973), a vice president and director at BCG. The inner city won’t be built on the backs of mom-and-pop stores, he said. “The new model is for major businesses that can employ a number of people and create significant distributed wealth.”

A talk by musician and impresario Quincy Jones kicked off the weekend’s events on Friday evening. Other panel topics included business opportunities in the Caribbean, racial identity in the workplace, and the importance of political empowerment in the African-American community.

For a full report on this and other student conferences, visit the “HBS Conference Coverage” section of HBS Working Knowledge at www.workingknowledge.hbs.edu.

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