JoAnn Price

JoAnn Price and Laurence Morse embody the structural invisibility of institutional investment. By 2014 they were managing $3.5 billion in capital and had directed at least $30 billion toward African-American and other minority businesses since 1994.² None of that appears in a product launch or a press release. The other diners in a Hartford restaurant cannot have known. This is not modesty. It is the structural condition of institutional finance.

Price attended Howard University — the HBCU in Washington, D.C., whose alumni include Thurgood Marshall, Kamala Harris, Chadwick Boseman, and Toni Morrison.¹ She went on to become President of the National Association of Investment Companies (NAIC), the trade association representing minority-owned PE and VC firms.¹ That position gave her a view of how much capital was not reaching minority-led funds — and how much value was being left unrealized.

The First Fund (1994)

In 1994, Price and Laurence Morse co-founded Fairview Capital Partners in West Hartford, Connecticut — the first institutional fund of funds focused on minority-led private equity and venture capital.¹ Institutional investors in 1994 would not commit capital to a minority-only management team regardless of credentials. Price and Morse structured the GP accordingly and built from there.

Initial assets under management: $92 million.² By 2014: $3.5 billion across 21 funds, including eight minority-focused funds of funds.² Total capital directed toward minority businesses since founding: at least $30 billion — approximately ten times Fairview's own AUM.²

The 2004 Inflection

In 2004, the Connecticut Investment Advisory Council selected Fairview from a pool of 40 competing firms to manage the state's venture capital commitments — the institutional validation that accelerated Fairview's growth.² The State Universities Retirement System of Illinois (SURS) committed an additional $100 million to Fairview's diverse and emerging managers program as recently as 2023.⁴

Scale and Recognition

As of 2026, Fairview Capital manages more than $10 billion in aggregate fund capitalization.⁵ In 2024, New York Life — America's largest mutual life insurer — acquired a minority ownership stake in Fairview Capital.⁴ New York Life has committed $200 million to Fairview since 2021 as part of its $1 billion impact investment initiative.⁴

Price serves on Fairview's Investment Committee and manages all Fairview-sponsored funds.¹ She has received the Hartford Business Journal's Business Person of the Year recognition and is consistently cited in institutional investment diversity rankings.⁶

She and Morse operate in the institutional investment world, where deals are private, capital flows are opaque, and press releases are rare. They are not building consumer products. They are building the infrastructure through which capital flows toward communities that have been structurally excluded from it. They are in the restaurant with the key lime pie. Nobody at the other tables knows who they are.

The White Partner Requirement

When Price and Morse launched Fairview Capital's first fund in 1994, institutional allocators — pension funds, endowments, foundations — would not commit capital to a fund managed by a minority-only team regardless of the team's credentials. The first fund required bringing white institutional partners into the general partnership structure. Peter Seigle and Claire Leonardi held a combined 35% GP ownership. This was not a strategic preference — it was a structural requirement imposed by the allocation market of 1994.

The constraint was double-edged: taking on white partners allowed the fund to exist, but it also meant that Fairview's first institutional fund was not entirely minority-controlled in its ownership structure. Price and Morse were navigating a market that said it wanted minority-led funds but required white names on the documents to actually allocate to them.

A second constraint: the fund-of-funds model adds an additional layer of intermediation between allocator and underlying investment. Institutional LPs had to be convinced not just to invest in minority-owned funds, but to invest through a minority-owned fund-of-funds that would then invest in those underlying funds. Each layer of abstraction required additional trust-building in a market that allocated trust through racial credential.

As of 2026

Fairview Capital Partners manages approximately $10 billion in aggregate capital since inception. The firm manages 21 or more funds, including multiple minority-focused funds of funds. The capital they have directed toward minority-owned and women-owned private equity and venture capital funds has influenced at least $30 billion in underlying investments across the United States — approximately ten times their own assets under management.

In 2022, the Visa Foundation committed $60 million through Fairview-managed vehicles, and the Ballmer Group directed $400 million through the firm's management. Price continues as Managing Partner and serves on Fairview's Investment Committee. Morse continues as Managing Partner and CEO.

The 2004 Connecticut Investment Advisory Council mandate — selection from 40 competing firms to manage the state's venture capital commitments — remains the documented strategic inflection that accelerated Fairview's growth. The specific strategic shift that Price and Morse made internally in 2004 is not publicly disclosed; the outcome is.