“Think of me as an aspiring Robert Smith,” Sherrese Clarke, founder and CEO of HarbourView Equity Partners, says, name-checking the billionaire tech entrepreneur who founded Vista Equity Partners. “He built a [private equity] business around enterprise software. We are doing that in the business of culture.”⁣ ⁣ HarbourView now owns more than 70 music catalogs, including over 35,000 songs, and its limited partners include financial giants Apollo and KKR. What also makes Clarke’s resume impressive is the fact that Harbourview is one of the few Black-owned firms operating in the space. ⁣ ⁣ According to a 2024 report by investment firm Fairview Capital Partners, there are more than 1,000 women- and minority-owned private equity and venture capital firms in the U.S., of which only 168 are Black-owned.⁣ ⁣ Continue reading about the #ForbesBLK50: Money Masters lister at the link in our bio. (📸: jameltoppinphoto for Forbes)