If being a Black financial adviser isn’t unusual enough, Jason Howell believes he may be the only one holding a specific trio of certifications — as a financial planner, private wealth adviser and socially responsible investment counselor. What’s more, his eponymous registered investment advisory firm in Vienna, Virginia, is one of the relatively few in the nation owned by a person of color. Ironically, however, Howell says he never paid much attention to whether he was the only person in the room who looked like him. “I wasn’t looking at things that way; I saw myself as an immigrant,” said Howell, who was born in California, but whose family returned to Trinidad when he was seven and then moved to Virginia when he was 13. “In high school, I didn’t have the right hipness.”

Becoming an accountant and working in finance for several years may not have been hip either, but it prepared him for some exciting next steps: Writing a book on personal finance, running for Congress as an independent with ideas to reform the tax code and stimulate housing, and becoming an RIA six years ago. In addition to chairing the new financial planning and wealth management advisory board at George Mason University, his alma mater, Howell is trying to have his firm make a difference by becoming involved in programs associated with the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which helps encourage investments in neighborhoods that lack access to financing. “Wouldn’t it be great to allocate portions of our clients’ bond portfolios to local communities?”
— Evan Cooper