Profile: John Washington Rogers Jr., founder, CEO & Chairman of Ariel Investments, LLC

John Washington Rogers Jr., founder, CEO & Chairman of Ariel Capital Management (now Ariel Investments, LLC)

John Washington Rogers Jr., is the founder, CEO & Chairman of Ariel Capital Management (now Ariel Investments, LLC) – one of the largest African American-owned money management and mutual fund companies in the United States.

Mr. Rogers founded Ariel Investments LLC in 1983 while aged 24 years after raising about US$180,000 from family and friends. He named the company Ariel after the almost extinct African and Asian mountain gazelle.

Under the stewardship of Rogers, Ariel Investments has experienced phenomenal growth – in 2004 (eleven years after it’s inception), Ariel managed US$ 17 billion in assets for individuals, corporations, university endowments, and some of the nation’s largest public and private pension funds.

Also by that date Rogers had created the first two mutual funds in the United States managed by African Americans.

As the company became more successful, Rogers then founded the Ariel Community Academy that specializes in teaching financial literacy to South Side Chicago children.

Rogers is an alumni of Princeton University, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1980. Prior to his founding Ariel Investments LLC, he worked in Chicago as a stockbroker for banking firm, William Blair & Company.

Rogers has served as a board member in various companies, and he was the first African American recipient of the Woodrow Wilson award (2008) honoring Princeton alums whose lives embody the ideals expressed in President Wilson’s speech, “Princeton in the Nation’s Service.”