Early Success
Ask Vios Equity Partners investment-team member Kelechi Nwokocha about his University at Albany experience, and you’ll receive an enthusiastic response. “It was everything I expected – a major stepping stone for where I am today. UAlbany provided the right level of support to help me determine the course of study to pursue and figure out my path,” he says.
A native of Nigeria, Nwokocha was 8 when his family moved to New York. In high school, he applied for admission to state universities after calculating the costs associated with attending a private institution rather than a public one.
“I concluded that it was possible to do well at a top New York State university and compete for Wall Street jobs often reserved for Ivy-League graduates – without the high tuition cost of a private university.”
At UAlbany, Nwokocha found “some of the brightest and most passionate academic professionals. EOP and School of Business staff provided endless resources, mentorship, and scholarship. The opportunity to discover and participate in Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) and Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) wouldn’t have been possible without UAlbany. The University provided the right academic background; advisers, such as Chris Fernando, who wrote my recommendation; and an alumni base of SEO and MLT participants who offered counsel before I applied to these distinguished programs, which were instrumental in affording career training and job opportunities.”
“Legendary” Professor Carl Bon Tempo, who taught Public Policy in Modern America, also impressed Nwokocha. “I live in Nigeria, but I still follow American politics religiously. I have more of a comprehensive understanding of the world. My views on global politics and affairs were fundamentally shaped by the many lessons Professor Bon Tempo taught.”
The School of Business’ “commitment to integrating real-life projects into the classroom setting,” Nwokocha adds, enabled him to hone the “time management, teamwork, and financial modeling capabilities” that contributed to his early success. Summer internships with the Office of the New York City Comptroller and leading Wall Street investment bank Jefferies & Co. gave the business major and former Dean Backer ’88 scholar “a competitive advantage. They positioned me for full-time opportunities after college and enabled me to break into the world of finance,” recalls Nwokocha, who also served as Albany State University Black Student Association (ASUBA) treasurer, head of energy investments for the University at Albany School of Business Investment Group (UASBIG), and National Association of Black Accountants president.
At 21, Nwokocha accepted a full-time position as investment-banking analyst at Jefferies & Co. Today, with Vios Equity Partners, which “focuses on investing large-scale capital in African businesses with market-leading potential,” he is proud of “helping mid- to large-scale African companies navigate one of the most unique business environments in the world.”
While conceding that “liquidity and currency risk” may challenge investors, Nwokocha predicts that Africa is poised to become “the next emerging economy.”
