KWAME JACKSON was the runner-up in the US series of The Apprentice. But not winning has done him no harm.
“The Apprentice was an entrepreneurial platform,” says the Harvard Business School graduate. “It was a place for me to showcase my business skills. It’s how I was able to launch my own business.”
Although the 30-year-old entrepreneur did not win, his knowledge, professionalism and charm distinguished him from the crowd. He has since become reality TV’s highest-paid and most sought-after speaker. Jackson’s most recent invitation brought him to the London School of Economics, where, as the first African American invited to talk to the LSE Student Union Business Society, he spoke last week on commercial diplomacy.
Jackson’s development company, Legacy Holdings, was “founded as a holding company to harness all of the opportunities that came my way after the show”. It was designed to leave a lasting legacy of economic institutions that create intergenerational wealth.
Legacy’s first project involves the company joining with two other firms on an estimated $3.8 billion mixed-use property development called Rosewood, located on 500 acres in Maryland, near Washington DC. Construction is due to start late next year.
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Jackson says: “The affluent African Americans who reside there must travel upwards of 15 miles to get to any high-end retail or commercial outlets. They are left wondering, ‘We have the money, why are these things not in our backyard?’.”
He adds: “Rosewood will serve that under-served population by creating a complex of a live-work-play community, with shopping and high-end retail, high-end homes and commercial business districts.
“It is specificially named after a prosperous African American community in Florida that was burnt down in the 1920s over jealousy and a racial incident.
“We believe that the new Rosewood pays homage to what the community in Florida may have become.
“I always say that in five years people will say about me, ‘Damn, he did all that from a reality show!’.”
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Bill Rancic, who won the US series, has been overseeing construction of the new Trump Tower in Chicago. He founded cigarsaroundthe-world.com nearly ten years ago in a tiny flat and and has built it into a multimillion- dollar national operation.