Hugh McColl, Malcomb Coley on building a business plan to help drive equity

Malcomb Coley, EY’s Central Region Private Leader and Charlotte managing partner, and retired Bank of America Corp. CEO Hugh McColl became friends a decade ago, soon after Coley relocated here.

In 2020, they became business partners, investing with former Duke Energy Corp. executive Lloyd Yates in Bright Hope Capital, a firm created to invest in — and build — minority-owned companies.

READ MORE: Charlotte transportation startup counts Hugh McColl, Malcomb Coley among clients

McColl is white; Coley and Yates are Black.

Both are heavily involved and interested in civic matters. McColl is widely credited as the person most responsible for catapulting Charlotte into a large metropolitan region over the past 40 years, often using the bank’s financial muscle to nurture everything from arts and culture to big-league sports as well as corporate philanthropy.

READ MORE: Retired Charlotte bank executive Hugh McColl weighs in on city’s odds of landing MLB team

Coley has become a fixture in civic campaigns and on major nonprofit boards. His current focus is the Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative, a $250 million public-private initiative started in 2021 to improve digital literacy and access, invest in Johnson C. Smith University, rebuild disadvantaged neighborhoods and create more opportunities for minorities in the private sector.

For those reasons and more, CBJ tapped Coley and McColl as our first guests on “Two Views,” a new monthly podcast that debuted in July. Read excerpts from that interview here.

(WATCH: Former Bank of America Chairman Hugh McColl discusses race and business)