Episode 39: Soltan Bryce of Colorful Capital and Guidehouse: Making Finance and Public Health Flow with Pride

Fiftyfaces Focus 2024 Pride Special

Soltan Bryce is a managing consultant at Guidehouse, which is a consulting firm focused on Public Health Strategy, Application Development and Management, and was recently acquired by Bain Capital Private Equity. He is a part time General Partner at Colorful Capital, which focuses on “finance flowing with Pride” and aims to bring capital support and scaffolding to enterprises founded and led by members of the broad LGBTQIA+ community, by filling financing gaps and overcoming detrimental heuristics.
Our conversation starts with Soltan’s upbringing in a North Carolina suburb, where he was a member of a small Muslim community that had come there as Palestinian refugees. He described himself as “gender nonchalant” during his youth – always more comfortable channeling male behavior but not, at that stage, aware of the “possibility models” that existed to affirm his gender. These possibilities opened up to him in his early career in healthcare, and his decision to transition attained such broad support and allyship that he saw that as the model of the leader he would like to be. Finding a calling to lead in areas such as transgender healthcare and investment in same, Soltan found himself drawn to business school, where he was intentional about coming out as transgender at Harvard Business School, which was still remarkably rare at that time.
We end by talking about Colorful Capital and discuss of the detrimental heuristics that are in place when members of the LGBTQ+ come to fundraise and how they can provide scaffolding and mentorship to bridge the gap
There is more information about Colorful Capital on the website https://www.colorful-capital.com/ and a link to their recently released impact report and management framework here: see press release and a direct link to Outsized Impact: How Investment Can Address the Systemic Risk of LGBTQIA+ Inequity.
Our fourth Pride series is supported by JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase has long been a supporter of equality in all forms, including for the LGBTQ+ community. Starting with the very first PRIDE business resource group in 1996, they recently strengthened their commitment by creating the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs and a full-time, dedicated team to deliver on a global LGBTQ+ agenda.
The Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs partners closely with stakeholders across the firm to promote intersectionality and leverage its combined resources to deliver equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees, clients, partners and communities, worldwide.