Vernon Beckford

Introduction and Who Is Vernon

Taryell Simmons: Welcome everybody to another episode of Rise Urban Nation. It's your host, Taryell Simmons, and Vernon is in the building. I wanted you to be from Mount Vernon so I could say Vernon from Mount Vernon. Where are you joining us from?

Vernon Beckford: I'm joining you from Hoboken, New Jersey, but oddly enough I grew up in New Rochelle, which borders Mount Vernon. So close, but I can't take credit for that.

Taryell Simmons: For the people who may not know, who is Vernon?

Vernon Beckford: A New Yorker, born and raised, and a passionate entrepreneur, excited about building businesses that bridge the gap and help facilitate development in the communities I feel most passionately about, communities of color. I'm a creative person, so you might see the diehard comic book fan come out in my professional interactions. I came from the large institutional corporate world and have migrated into creating my own lane.

Taryell Simmons: Does coming from corporate give you an advantage as an entrepreneur?

Vernon Beckford: No question. You're capable of learning anything, but you want a foundation to build on. If you try to learn everything on your own with no structure, it takes a lot longer. Corporate is like an extension of college. You take that toolbox and apply it to what you're really good at. It was completely instrumental for me.

Taryell Simmons: My uncle once told me, don't let school get in the way of your education.

Vernon Beckford: Learning is not mutually exclusive. Some of it is in school or a corporate job, some is day-to-day interactions, some is starting an enterprise. Never close a door to learning because you think there's just one way to do it.

From Wall Street to Diversified Lending Solutions

Taryell Simmons: How did you make the leap from corporate America to entrepreneurship?

Vernon Beckford: It was one big circle. In high school my parents recommended the Young Entrepreneurship Program at Columbia University, where by the end you created a business. I loved it, and it led me to apply and be accepted to Columbia. I knew entrepreneurship would always be part of the narrative, but I wanted to understand how large businesses and the economy worked, so I went into investment banking, a sink-or-swim environment with big-dollar deals. I even helped build a business for the bank in Japan. Then the 2008 recession hit, and I launched a business with my current business partner advising on real estate transactions that had gone sideways.

Vernon Beckford: I went back to business school and back to corporate, but I was always investing on the side, building my skill set, relationships and network. Two years ago, launching Diversified Lending Solutions with my partner was the right place, right time and right opportunity.

Taryell Simmons: Have you always been unafraid of opportunity like that?

Vernon Beckford: That took time. It came from being around people who pushed me to ask: what's next? Is this enough? When do you cut the cord? I also realized there's really no such thing as safety. Corporate feels safe because you can predict what will happen, but a shock to the economy or a change in leadership can transform your world overnight. Once you accept you don't control everything, you can position yourself in a truly independent way instead of tricking yourself into feeling more comfortable than you should.

Real Estate Structured Finance

Taryell Simmons: Tell me about your company.

Vernon Beckford: Diversified Lending Solutions is a real estate structured finance company. We help owners and operators of real estate investment properties think through how best to fund their projects and obtain the funding to grow. If you want to buy a hundred-unit multifamily property, you're raising capital from third parties and obtaining debt. You have to convince counterparties to finance you, on the right terms, without taking risks that leave you vulnerable. We advise on that. We're far from the first. That's the bread and butter of finance, whether it's debt, equity, preferred equity or mezzanine debt. But we take a very unique approach.

Vernon Beckford: Real estate has historically been a huge creator of wealth across generations and centuries. For folks from our communities especially, people can see, touch and feel what it's linked to, and there's a primary need for it that's easy to understand.

Closing the Capital Gap for Operators

Taryell Simmons: What does your perfect client look like?

Vernon Beckford: There's a huge gap between what's available to a small or mid-sized operator and a large investor. A mega corporation gets cheap financing and lots of leverage. Smaller operators are seen as less creditworthy, with less track record and weaker relationships with capital providers. Our ideal client isn't on their first transaction. Maybe they've rounded first or second base. They own fifty units and want two hundred by next year, but lack the institutional relationships to grow that fast.

Vernon Beckford: One client who's a source of great pride is an African American female rock star in Houston. She built about five hundred multifamily units in a couple of years and wanted to double that with a five-hundred-unit property. She said, "I'm a rock star, but I'm still an African American woman in an industry where very few people look like me. I want the right team around me." We helped her obtain financing on a forty million dollar project that took her to a thousand units. That's the success we want to facilitate: a new crop of investors in the sandbox, wealth built for operators and quality projects in their communities.

Taryell Simmons: You gotta introduce me to this rock star. When we all work together, we lift each other up.

First Jobs, Inroads and SEO

Taryell Simmons: Let's go back to humble beginnings. What was your first job?

Vernon Beckford: My real first job was tennis instructor at my local high school tennis camp. I was a caddy for a while and didn't like how I was treated. Then I got my first corporate gig at GE Capital in Stamford, Connecticut, through Inroads, an internship program for people of color. I quickly felt like a cog in a very large wheel. I wanted to be where the magic happens, on Wall Street, in the pinstripe suit.

Taryell Simmons: Did you ever get your pinstripe suit?

Vernon Beckford: Eventually, but by then I was working 120-hour weeks, so it was a small consolation. I applied to Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, SEO, one of the most transformative experiences of my life. It's a boot camp for Wall Street and corporate law. They test your math and verbal skills, your networking and how you handle challenging social situations, all while you do a full-time internship at a Wall Street bank. I got my first full-time job out of college at Credit Suisse.

Vernon Beckford: It felt like a glass of cold water in your face. The leadership was unapologetic: you went to a great school, but you'll have to earn this. People as good as you, if not better, are competing, and some can help their nephew or niece. To stand out, be the best at what you do and show up every day. That fortified me through hard challenges later in my career.

Taryell Simmons: I tell people to look at internships, volunteer and immerse themselves around the people who do the thing they're passionate about.

Vernon Beckford: So true. I'd grab the Vault guide on investment banking at the campus Barnes & Noble and read it page to page, take juniors and first-year analysts to dinner to hear what it's really like, and go to every networking event. By graduation I was almost already in that world, because I wasn't passively waiting for someone to say yes. Take your destiny in your own hands.

Run Your Own Race

Taryell Simmons: What's one good lesson life has taught you?

Vernon Beckford: Run your own race. In this digital age it's easy to compare yourself to so-and-so, but there's so much of their story you can't see. Did they have a rich uncle? Is it a facade? Your path not looking like someone else's is a good thing. Lean into it, focus on the goal right now, and one day you'll look up and say, "Wow, I never thought I'd be here." My dad always said it's the journey, not the destination. The steps to get there are where the gold is, where the grit, the joys and the frustrations get condensed.

Taryell Simmons: I've fallen in love with the process. Some people followed a safe career that wasn't their passion and feel stuck. What would you tell them?

Vernon Beckford: Take account of what you've actually accomplished. People let doubt, fear of embarrassment and an invisible group of opinions crowd their mind. Quiet that noise and ask: what do I want? Once you answer honestly, chart the path and lean on what you've proven you can do. The biggest person you need to convince is not your investor, your mother or your spouse. It's you. If you believe, everything else gets easier.

Taryell Simmons: I saw a pitch competition where a team with a perfect pitch lost because the VCs didn't believe in the team. There was a lack of cohesion and confidence in the leadership. Convince you first, and it's easy to convince everybody else.

Breaking Into Real Estate and the Future

Taryell Simmons: What advice would you give someone starting a career in your industry?

Vernon Beckford: When I started there were three paths: a large institution like Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse or Morgan Stanley; a family real estate business; or joining a property management company or becoming a leasing agent. Now real estate tech is disrupting brokerage, property management, site tours and finance, which opens a lot of opportunities. And it's never too early to start being the business you want to create. If you have a nine to five, network with investors and be a passive investor in a project. Do that once or twice and you build knowledge and confidence. Being "ready" isn't binary. It's a progression. Jim or Susie who launched that massive company spent fifteen years taking baby steps. Invest in the process early.

Taryell Simmons: What does the future hold for your industry?

Vernon Beckford: Blockchain and cryptocurrency allow further fractionalization of real estate, so people could buy and sell small interests like a stock. On a social level, I hope communities of color pool resources to invest in our own communities. Like the Houston deal, attorneys, bankers, operators and construction companies can build projects that expand wealth creation and deliver needed amenities. We've had challenges playing nicely in the same sandbox. We have all the instruments, but we have to make wealth creation and economic development central for ourselves.

Representation in Commercial Real Estate

Taryell Simmons: Have you seen companies hire more people of color?

Vernon Beckford: At Credit Suisse I was the only African American in my real estate finance group, in a broader group of well over a hundred people. Honestly, that dynamic has not changed. There's more pressure now, but I don't know that companies know how to address it. At Harvard Business School, in a meeting with the dean, I raised that I was one of two Black men in a section of ninety. He said, "We'd like to change it, but we don't know where to find more of you." So at my company we work with large investment funds that have committed to investing in operators of color, women and underserved groups, and we put those operators in front of them. "We don't know where they are" is simply not a good enough answer anymore. It won't solve everything, but organizations like the Real Estate Executive Council are pooling resources, and I'm optimistic we're making progress.

Current Projects and Final Words

Taryell Simmons: What are you working on, and where can people find you?

Vernon Beckford: Residential and commercial projects, from new construction to value-add redevelopment, primarily in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. If you're an operator seeking financing in this market of inflation and rate hikes, reach out on LinkedIn, email [email protected] or visit dlsloans.com. And soon-to-be investors, I always make time for folks trying to get into the industry. The long-term goal is to expand the pie so everyone who wants to play gets a chance.

Taryell Simmons: Thank you for expanding the pie. Any last words of wisdom?

Vernon Beckford: Thank you, Taryell. Market volatility is not a reason to go back into the cave. It's in periods of volatility that we can create wealth. Talk to people in your community, be creative about what it needs, and see real estate as a real opportunity to bridge the gap toward economic development.

Taryell Simmons: Most wealth is made in volatility. For all my runners out there running your business, your life and your career, the episode notes will have everything you need to connect with Vernon.