close window 
Drawing from his own early experiences at Bear, Stearns & Company and Dean Witter Reynolds, Christopher Gardner said the beauty of being on Wall Street is the opportunities it affords. “In this business its not a black thing. It’s not a white thing. It’s a green thing,” he said. “But you cannot be marginally successful in this business—not if you’re black, not if you’re a woman, not if you’re Latino, or anything else. You’ve got to be good, baby. You’ve got to be good.”
Gardner, whose story is the subject of the recently-released motion picture The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith, was the keynote speaker at the 22nd annual DuSable Business Event November 3 at the Hyde Park Center. Hosted by the African American MBA Association, which is run by students from the Full-Time MBA program, it drew nearly 200 students, alumni, and friends of the GSB. “You get to a point where you can do business that reflects your values and make money,” said Gardner, who is president and CEO of Gardner, Rich & Co., a Chicago-based brokerage firm. Among the company’s latest project is an effort to create a fund to invest solely in South Africa. Guest said it would have a direct economic impact on more than 300,000 of the nation’s people.
Being in the position to both make money and make a difference in the world is something Gardner might not have imagined when he was first starting out. Determined to be a good father to his son while surviving on a meager trainee stipend at Dean Witter Reynolds in the early 1980s, he and his child wound up living together on the streets and in homeless shelters in California.
The film depicts what Gardener described as “the scariest, most frightening, dangerous year of [his] life, with a baby tied on my back, and trying to make it on Wall Street.” The movie is based on Gardner’s book (coauthored with Quincy Troupe) of the same name in which he talks about “spiritual genetics,” or deciding what you are going to be like as a person or what spirit you will embrace from the people around you. “It’s about conscious choice and commitment,” he said, crediting his mother with giving him confidence he could succeed. “If you want something, go and get it. Period. “And if you want to make real money, there ain’t but one place to do it, and that’s Wall Street.”
—Jenn Q. Goddu