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GSCW chat recap: Offensive lineman looks to tech startups for investment

“For me, the competitive advantage was to be contrarian to what most athletes love to look at.”

This fireside chat is part of FreightWaves’ Global Supply Chain Week. Day 7 focuses on global maritime logistics.

FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: The Evolution of Professional Athletes as Investors

DETAILS: Kelvin Beachum is an offensive tackle, most recently for the Arizona Cardinals but with stops also as a New York Jet and a Pittsburgh Steeler. He also has taken a deep interest in venture capital investment in technology startups, working with a Silicon Valley firm in the offseason and investing a portion of his portfolio in startups, including FreightWaves. 

SPEAKER and INTERVIEWER: In addition to his commitments with the NFL, Beachum is known for his dedication to ending hunger by working directly with advocacy groups like World Vision and supporting community food banks across America. He also sits on the Entertainment Council for Feeding America. Beachum is an Executive Board member for the Simmons School of Education and the Lyle School of Engineering at Southern Methodist University. He is an alternate union rep for the NFL Players Association and a member of the NFLPA Brand Ambassador Program as well as a Players Inc. Advisory Committee member. Beachum is interviewed by Craig Fuller, founder and CEO of FreightWaves, as part of the Fuller Speed Ahead series of interviews.


KEY QUOTES FROM BEACHUM:

“You think about founders, you think about markets, you think about what investors are striving for. They are striving for differentiation. They’re striving for the edge, they are striving for competitive advantage.”

“Athletes like to do media, sports tech, hair and beauty. Those are fine but I wanted to be different. I have a few of those companies in my portfolio. But I found it was better to be contrarian and find industries where we’re not in and where we can have a different perspective we can bring to the table.”

“What gets me excited first and foremost is the relationship with the founder. That is the number one thing I am most concerned about and aware of.”


“People are realizing there are some amazing founders of color that are doing really well.”

John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.