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In the rarefied world of institutional private equity, where trillion-dollar pension funds park capital with only the most trusted gatekeepers, Dr. Laurence C. Morse has spent 30 years building something that almost did not exist when he started: a Black-owned investment management firm that commands billions.
Morse, 74, is the co-founder and managing partner of Fairview Capital Partners, a West Hartford, Connecticut-based firm that has managed $10.8 billion in committed capital across private equity and venture capital funds since its founding in 1994. He built it alongside co-founder JoAnn H. Price. The two started with no institutional backing, no anchor investor, and no guarantee that the largest pools of money in America would entrust capital to a Black-led firm operating in a space where almost none existed.
They did it anyway.
Fairview today counts some of the most prominent institutional investors in the country among its limited partners. The $267.7 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, the $33 billion Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions, and the $3.7 billion City of Dallas Employees' Retirement Fund have all committed capital to the firm. In 2024, New York Life Insurance Company acquired a minority ownership stake in Fairview, a deal that validated three decades of performance and placed the firm inside one of the oldest financial institutions in the United States. Majority ownership remains with the Fairview team.
The trajectory did not come without friction. In the early years, Morse and Price heard more refusals than commitments. Price has said publicly that the co-founders had to grow comfortable hearing no, or being told their idea was unlikely to succeed.
The making of an economist
Morse was born on July 2, 1951, in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, where he attended segregated schools. He was among the last generation of Black students in the American South to go through high school before desegregation laws were fully enforced.
He enrolled at Howard University in 1969 and graduated in 1973 with a bachelor's degree in economics, finishing summa cum laude and earning Phi Beta Kappa honors. During his junior year, he studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science as a Luard Scholar. He went on to earn a master's degree and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University, completing the doctorate in 1980. A postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard followed.
Morse did not go straight into finance. In 1983, he joined UNC Ventures in Boston as an analyst and was later promoted to investment officer. He moved to Equico Capital Corporation, a subsidiary of The Equitable Life Insurance Company, as vice president in 1988. A stint at Coopers and Lybrand followed in 1992, where he worked as a senior venture capital advisor helping structure a proposed $100 million enterprise development fund for post-apartheid South Africa.
Two years later, he and Price launched Fairview.
A firm that punches above its weight
Fairview operates as a fund-of-funds manager. It does not invest directly in companies but selects and allocates capital to other private equity and venture capital funds, including those led by diverse and emerging managers. The model requires deep diligence, long time horizons, and the trust of pension funds that cannot afford to get it wrong.
In 2021, the Ballmer Group, led by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife, Connie, committed $50 million to Fairview as part of a broader $400 million initiative to back Black investment managers. Fairview matched the allocation with $50 million from its existing portfolios.
Managing partners now include Kola Olofinboba, Alan Mattamana, Aakar Vachhani, and Kwesi Quaye, reflecting a deliberate push to build a next generation of leadership at the firm.
Beyond the firm
Morse's influence extends well past Fairview's portfolio. He served as chairman of the board of trustees at Howard University from July 2020 to June 2025, a tenure during which the university saw surging enrollment and national attention. He is a member of the board of directors of Webster Financial Corporation, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, and sits on the board of trustees of Harris Associates Investment Trust, better known as the Oakmark Mutual Funds. He also serves on the board of the National Bureau of Economic Research and previously chaired the National Association of Investment Companies, the trade group representing diverse-owned private equity and hedge fund firms.
