Award-winning financial advisor George Acheampong is pursuing a monumental mission: to shrink the racial wealth gap by a hundred billion dollars by helping 100,000 people of color achieve their first or next million-dollar net worth. Appearing on the "Building Wealth Without Borders" Show, hosted by Lamide Elizabeth, Acheampong shared the personal and professional journey that shaped his financial philosophy. Elizabeth guided the conversation from Acheampong's childhood in Atlanta to the innovative strategies he now employs through his firms, Melanin Money and Capital Wise, which have already helped his clients increase their collective net worth by $244 million in the last year. Throughout the discussion, Elizabeth drew parallels to her own experiences, such as being the "bank of lambs" in her house, creating a relatable and engaging dialogue for her global audience.
Acheampong's financial awakening was sparked by a Christmas disappointment when he received socks instead of the PlayStation he desperately wanted, a moment that taught him his mother lacked the resources and that he had to get things for himself. This led him to become the family "loan shark" by age 11, intuitively understanding interest. After graduating during the 2008 recession, he pivoted from marketing to a career in financial services. A key turning point came when his firm required him to prospect clients from a list of high-net-worth individuals, a group that excluded his own community. This experience drove him to create a firm that would meet people where they are on their wealth journey rather than expecting them to already be wealthy.
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This vision led to the founding of his advisory firm, Capital Wise, and the educational platform Melanin Money. Melanin Money acts as an educational funnel, providing free masterclasses and podcasts to empower people at scale, having taught 30,000 individuals live last year. When Elizabeth questioned if niching down to serve Black clients was too restrictive, Acheampong confidently countered that with a community spending power of $2.1 trillion, the money exists; what's needed is a paradigm shift in its allocation, driven by education and access.
At the core of Acheampong's strategy is his "wealth triangle": Make, Manage, Maximize. The first and most crucial step is to "make your money" by becoming world-class at something. He asserts that wealth is built through concentration and preserved through diversification. Once you become an expert, you can build scalable systems where "people or systems make you money," before finally reaching the stage where "money making you money" through investments becomes the focus.
For investing, Acheampong advocates a "core-satellite" strategy, balancing diversified ETFs (the core) with high-conviction individual stocks (the satellite) to outperform the market. He also advises clients to leverage their taxable brokerage accounts, borrowing against them to acquire cash-flow-producing assets like real estate or small businesses. When Elizabeth asked for advice for someone wanting to retire early, Acheampong emphasized prioritizing cash flow over net worth. He explained that it's the income from assets, not just their paper value, that covers living expenses and creates true freedom. He also shared the counterintuitive but powerful idea that time freedom precedes financial freedom: buying back your time by outsourcing tasks allows you to invest more in yourself to become world-class, which ultimately accelerates your income potential and path to financial independence.
