I was born and raised in Chicago as the oldest of two, the son of a nurse and dietitian and a 30-year Chicago Police Department veteran, in a household where the values of hard work, service to others, and community were instilled early. I went on to study Economics at Pomona College, graduating in 2016, before beginning my career in investment banking at Bank of America Securities. There, I spent over three years in the industrials group before transitioning to private equity at CC Industries, the family office and holding company of the Crown family, one of Chicago's most storied multigenerational organizations. There I invested in niche manufacturing and industrial services businesses, developing a deep appreciation for family businesses and the legacies they preserve.
In 2020, the tragic and public loss of my father to suicide prompted me to pause and reassess my priorities. This loss became a catalyst for meaningful action. I founded Up Your Equity, a business dedicated to providing financial education to underrepresented youth from eighth grade through high school, and began investing in and managing residential real estate, placing families in need into professionally rehabbed apartment buildings I owned. For two years, I worked alongside Chicago Public Schools, nonprofits, and families, channeling my grief into purpose.
That period of service crystallized a deeper calling: entrepreneurship. The path forward arrived unexpectedly. While teaching Ted Lafeber, CEO of the Lafeber Company, about finance and investing through Up Your Equity, I was recruited to join the fifty-year-old, third-generation family business as Head of Finance to address a critical leadership need. The company, known for its gourmet bird food and nutrient-dense products for critically ill animals, gave me firsthand exposure to the rhythms of family business ownership and the human elements of running a small company day-to-day.
Those experiences, combined with my investing background at CC Industries, converged into a singular passion: acquiring and operating a family business while helping its founders preserve their legacy. Today, I am co-founder and managing partner of RHT Growth Partners. Beyond my professional pursuits, my greatest roles are as a husband to my wife Geralyn, and father to my son, Dion Warren Boyd. In my free time, I find balance and joy on the golf course, the basketball court, and taking my son to swimming lessons.
Conversation Starters
Family and fatherhood, tragic loss, family business, travel, real estate investing, golf (playing), and professional sports (NBA and NFL).
Favorite Quote
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
