Floyd Tyler — 'one of the brightest financial minds in Memphis' — has died

Described as "one of the brightest financial and investment minds in Memphis," Floyd Tyler was an unprecedented force in local economics: the first Black founder of a money management firm in the region with millions of dollars in government and corporate clients.

Founded in 2009, Tyler's firm, Preserver Partners LLC, currently manages close to $245 million in assets for a roster that includes both Memphis and Shelby County government, MLGW, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and numerous other local and national clients.

"That's tremendous, especially for a small African American firm in Memphis," said commercial real estate executive Darrell Cobbins. "In that field, there aren't many African American firms."

In fact, according to the company's chief operating officer, Dana Pointer, Preserver Partners is the only African American-owned investment management firm in the region and one of only six African American-owned mutual fund managers in the U.S.

But Tyler didn't invest only in stocks, bonds and other funds. He invested some of his profits and much of his energy back into Memphis, establishing a foundation in 2019 "to promote education, economic opportunity and social justice," according to its website.

"Part of his mission was to use the profits from his success to make Memphis a better city," said Archie Willis III of ComCap Partners, a real estate consulting firm.

Floyd N. Tyler Jr., 54, died Jan. 23 at Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital. He had been undergoing treatment for cancer when he contracted COVID-19, and the combination caused a sudden drastic downturn in his health, Pointer said.

Services were Saturday at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. In a testimony to Tyler's renown, both Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris spoke at the funeral.

Tyler was born in Chicago but primarily raised by an aunt in Orange Mound. There, "I was driven by the idea that I didn’t want to be poor when I grew up," he told MLK50, the Memphis-based online news service with an emphasis on stories about social and economic justice.

A graduate of Central High School, Tyler collected degrees at the University of Tennessee at Martin and Carnegie Mellon University before earning a Ph.D. in finance from Florida State University.

Returning to Memphis, Tyler was a partner at the Gerber/Taylor investment firm before striking out on his own as founder, president and chief investment officer with Preserver Partners, where he and his team managed pensions and other funds for foundations, hospitals and other corporate and nonprofit clients. "He was one of the brightest financial and investment minds in Memphis," said Cobbins.

Always cognizant of his Orange Mound background, Tyler worked to close the racial wealth gap and to increase the financial literacy of Black young people. He was a youth mentor and member of numerous boards dedicated to social service, education and healthy living. A few of these include Lifeblood, the Methodist Healthcare Foundation, Bridges and the Community Redevelopment Agency.

At Preserver Partners, he established a foundation that offered scholarships, hosted financial literacy workshops, made donations to similarly motivated groups and otherwise worked to provide youth with some money-management knowledge and skills they might not receive at home.

Recently, Pointer said, the foundation launched a "completion scholarship" fund with the University of Memphis that provided assistance to eight African American men who were at-risk of failing to earn degrees in their senior year because of financial hardship.

"We found out that so many people don't graduate right there at the end because they run out of money," Pointer said. "And African American males are the biggest pool in that population affected by this. This was something Floyd was very passionate about, helping these young men get their degrees."

"He was really committed to doing what he could within his sphere of influence to make Memphis a better place," Willis said. "Especially from the standpoint of being being more economic opportunities across the city."

Tyler leaves a daughter, Rian Tyler; his mother, Aubrey Della Pinion; two sisters, Sadiya Muhammad and Toni Singer; and two brothers, Argentry Dean an Anthony Tyler; and a fiancée, Angel Price.

"It's a huge loss for Memphis," said Cobbins, "both in terms of his business acumen but also because he was very philanthropic."

"Floyd was a force," Pointer said. "He had a seat at many tables, and he always made sure to use his voice to advocate for people who weren't fortunate enough to be at those tables with him."

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Floyd Tyler, 'one of brightest financial minds in Memphis,' has died