‘FOR ME, GOING TO WALL STREET WAS A MISTAKE’
Wertman, 56, certainly knows the pesky voice in the back of the head, the voice that says despite enjoying a comfortable and successful life, there’s something more you’re meant to be. Wertman, whose parents were both teachers from Queens, New York, spent nearly two decades on Wall Street. He topped out as a managing director for Prudential Securities where he managed nearly $25 billion in debt financing and oversaw offices in Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. And, concedes Wertman, he was miserable nearly every day.
“For me, going to Wall Street was a mistake. I never should have done it,” he says. “You can ask my wife, I barely had a happy day in 18 years on Wall Street. I just happened to be good at it. But I was pretty miserable.”
Wertman spent the 18 years simultaneously addicted to the Wall Street game while feeling a call to social service. “Nobody leaves Wall Street voluntarily,” Wertman insists. “Some can’t hack it, get fired, or quit. But it’s Wall Street, man. You’re the investment bankers. You’re the kings of the universe. Nobody leaves. But I always assumed I was going to leave and do community work. It was just a matter of when.”
FROM WALL STREET TO SKID ROW…THE GOOD WAY
The when started by distancing himself. He uprooted his family and moved coasts to run Prudential’s Los Angeles office. And in 2000, soon after the move, Wertman took a stroll from his downtown office. What he found would finally liberate him from Wall Street’s grasp and alter his life forever.
“I remember standing on Main Street, which is now cute restaurants, but at the time, literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of homeless people in tents were smoking crack, shooting up heroin on this block. And I remember standing on the block—because even in New York we didn’t have anything like that—and looking up and seeing my office on the 46th floor, not even eight blocks away. And I was saying, how is this possible? That there’s all this wealth, here’s L.A., and yet this horrible thing exists. And I literally couldn’t sleep at night. This is not America. This is not human. There is no reason for this.”
Wertman discovered Skid Row. The 54-block swath of ghetto bordered by 3rd Street to the north, 7th Street to the south, Alameda Street to the east and Main Street to the west has been inhabited by society’s marginalized since the end of the 19th century, when mainly transients and seasonal workers staked claim to the area. A population comprised of mainly single adult men fled their lives back east to work in petroleum, automotive and sometimes entertainment. Single room hotels and social service agencies began to pop up. When the Great Depression hit in the 30’s, the low income housing and services were already in place to handle those hit the hardest. Now, nearly 20,000 people are smashed into the area that holds about 2,500 households.
SOLVING A NEW ECONOMIC PROBLEM
To be sure, Wertman has his opinions on what exactly went wrong with Skid Row and what’s behind the poverty afflicting its inhabitants. Just the mention of Skid Row changes his normal California-cool demeanor to passion and frustration. But, bottom line, what he sees is a major economic problem and opportunity.
“It took no research for me to figure out homelessness is an economic problem,” explains Wertman. “It’s not a disease to be cured. It’s about jobs and housing prices. And that fit with something where I thought I could have impact because my background was economics and business.”
Wertman quit Prudential Securities and began researching organizations serving Skid Row. He ultimately found Chrysalis. Founded in 1984 by then 22-year-old John Dillon with his own money,Chrysalis has been focused on Skid Row for more than three decades. Originally, it was a clothing distribution center but quickly expanded into Skid Row’s first exclusive employment program. Now, some 31 years later, Chrysalis has had multiple million-dollar expansions and relocations and boasts three centers.
‘THERE WAS A PETITION GOING AROUND SKID ROW SAYING I WOULD RUIN SKID ROW’
Wertman started by taking a seat on the board. A few months later, he became chairman. Another few months later, the position of president and CEO for Chrysalis came open. When word got out that a former investment banker was eyeing the top position at one of the most impactful Skid Row-focused organizations, push-back quickly ensued.
“There was a petition going around Skid Row saying that I would ruin Skid Row, if they let some investment banker MBA in,” recalls Wertman, laughing. “There are 18,000 homeless people, but one investment banker is what it’d take to ruin it.”
He didn’t ruin it. Wertman took over as president and CEO, gladly accepting the 85% cut in pay and made an immediate impact. He doubled the size of the agency, adding 1,400 donors. Chrysalis upped its transitional employment success rate from around 65% to 93%. He also managed two social enterprises that employed about 1,000 people and generated more than $4 million in revenues annually.
The most successful of the two social organizations is a street cleaning and trash collection service. Wertman was even asked by then-San Francisco Mayor and current California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom to open and run a similar program in San Francisco.
AN INDUSTRY ‘STIFLED BY A LACK OF TALENT’
Instead, Wertman took another pivot. In 2005, he entered academia as a senior fellow in UCLA’s School of Public Affairs, teaching three graduate-level nonprofit management and finance courses. But he soon experienced the crux of the social enterprise problem. “I’m running a $4.5 million garbage business with more than 900 employees and insurance and customer service and logistics and 28 trucks,” Wertman explains. “I need people who are the exact same business people as any other business. Yet none of those resumes were coming to us. I’m looking at an industry being stifled by a lack of business-trained talent.”
This wouldn’t do. Wertman had to do something about it. So he put together a 10-page proposal for a social enterprise program within a B-school and cold called three area business school deans. USC Marshall Dean James Ellis was new on the job in 2007 and was intrigued. “He was new, but he understood business schools had a role,” Wertman says. “I don’t think he knew what it was I was going to do. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know what I was going to do, mostly because I didn’t know what a university did.”
Wertman left Chrysalis, scored a $1 million investment from Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and as a professor of clinical entrepreneurship started a social impact fellows program for MBA students at Marshall. Wertman spent the next five years developing an undergraduate social enterprise minor, a scholarship program and establishing the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab at Marshall.
And then he proposed a specialized master’s program.
