Beating the Odds: Eddie Brown's Investing and Life Strategies

Against a backdrop of U.S. banks and investment houses collapsing and corrupt investors improperly handling financier funds, Eddie Brown, founder and President of Brown Capital Management, has routinely eschewed shortcuts, undue risk and questionable dealings, creating one of the country's oldest African American-owned investment firms. The life and journey that brought Brown to this success is an inspirational journey of overcoming overwhelming odds stacked against him to become one of the nation's most revered financial superstars.

In a wealth-building primer and an improbable, inspiring autobiography all in one, Beating the Odds; Eddie Brown's Investing and Life Strategies details Brown’s upbringing with a loving and supportive family, his steps into the world of finance, how he skillfully kept Brown Capital Management afloat through the dot-com bust, 9/11 and the Great Recession to become a financial guru and one of the nation’s top stock pickers and money managers.

Born to a 13-year-old unwed mother in the rural South, this investment whiz’s career began as a moonshine runner, plying the back roads of Central Florida in a souped-up Ford pickup. Brown details how he went on to become an electrical engineer and highly regarded IBM technocrat, a vice president and star portfolio manager with T. Rowe Price, a media celebrity, and finally head of Brown Capital Management, one of the most successful financial services firms in the United States.

Among the fascinating cast of characters readers will meet in Beating the Odds are Eddie's beloved grandmother, Mamie Magdalene Brown, his charismatic Uncle Jake, a natural-born entrepreneur who taught the young Eddie Carl the value of personal initiative and a desire to become the master of his own financial destiny. Readers will also be introduced to the colorful financial commentator Louis Rukeyser, on whose show, “Wall $treet Week”, Eddie rose to prominence as the country's first African American financial celebrity.

Beating the Odds is an unflinchingly honest, easy-to-read memoir detailing how intellectual curiosity, abiding self-belief, hard work and divine providence helped Brown grow throughout his professional and personal life. Readers will learn of the strife that ensued when Brown quit IBM to earn an MBA, leading to investment jobs that prepared him to start his own money management company in 1983. Brown also delves into how he built his company into a financial giant that has amassed more than $6 billion and the source of his uncanny ability to spot growth stocks well in advance of the markets, and the development of GARP (growth at a reasonable price), the guiding investment philosophy behind Brown Capital Management.

This remarkable true story of how one man overcame poverty to attain the pinnacle of business success, Beating the Odds is inspiring reading not just for business readers, but for everyone who believes that a person's ambition should always be as big as his or her dreams.