Kitan Irukera
Dynasty Equity
New York, NY USA
"If you focus on what you can focus on, control what you can control, and continue to hone the superpower that you've had to hone just to become who you are today, the rest will solve itself."
Career Roadmap
Kitan's work combines: Business, Sports, and Accomplishing Goals
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Applied Economics and Management
Cornell University
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life has been direct
1.
When my family moved from Chicago, Illinois, to Lagos, seeing people who looked like me in positions of prominence showed me what was possible.
2.
My entrepreneurial streak started young, selling American snacks to my classmates in Lagos after bringing them back from summers in Chicago.
3.
After the financial crisis sparked my curiosity about Wall Street, I studied business and finance at Cornell and explored the industry through internships.
4.
I started my career in investment banking at J.P. Morgan, where working across different deals gave me broad exposure to businesses and industries.
5.
Wanting more ownership over outcomes, I moved from advising companies to investing in them at a private equity firm in San Francisco, California.
6.
I joined the founding team of a new private equity firm focused on sports, combining my investing experience with a growing passion for the industry.
7.
Today, I’m helping scale our firm from zero to one and beyond, taking on whatever role is needed to help our team succeed.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Myself:
I have to follow a specific and recommended path into my career if I want to be successful.
How I responded:
I fixated on a lot of things that I thought were more critical to my success than they actually were. People said you needed to be in a specific investment banking group to get into private equity, and if you weren't, your career was over. I didn't get into my desired group and thought that was it for me. In hindsight, if I got the group I wanted, I wouldn't be where I'm at today—and I really like where I'm at. My advice is to not fixate and focus on the things that are within your control.
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
As an underrepresented minority in finance, I’ve had to be more aware of how I’m perceived and intentional about how I present myself. I focus on what I can control: being prepared, doing the work, and continuing to build my skills.