After serving as chief investment officer for Philadelphia’s pension plan, Tina Byles Williams went on to build one of the nation’s largest Black-run investment firms, writes Joseph N. DiStefano for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“I believe in America’s possibility because I live it,” said Byles Williams at the city’s Union League last month.

A Harvard graduate and Jamaican immigrant, Byles Williams led a discussion titled “The American Dream: What Now?” during the event.

Byles Williams’ company oversees $20 billion in clients’ money, most of it for public pension plans, including $234 million in foreign stocks it picks for the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System.

She was first recruited by then-city finance officer Betsy Reveal in the late 1980s. As chief investment officer,  she selected pensions first for the Philadelphia Gas Works and then for the city’s underfunded pension system.

Back then, “you could count on one hand — and not use all your fingers — all the people of color and women who ran investments,” said Byles Williams.

She left city government in 1994, and two years later co-founded Fiduciary Investment Solutions, Xponance’s predecessor. The firm remains one of the few Black-run investment management firms that have continued to grow.

Read more about Tina Byles Williams and her career journey in The Philadelphia Inquirer.