Wes Moore

Age: 31, Investment Professional
Citigroup, New York City

When Wes Moore served as special assistant to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a White House Fellow, he came to realize “how much of policy and Washington is knowing how budgets and finance work.” The realization led Moore to Wall Street, where he is an investment professional, working directly with the CEO of the Global Banking Division of Citigroup and focusing on global technology and sourcing potential divestiture options.

Moore’s path could have been very different, a fact he explores in his New York Times best-selling book The Other Wes Moore: One Name and Two Fates, which deals with two Baltimore males who share the same name but whose lives go in very different directions. Moore’s father died when Wes was just three years old. By age 12, Moore was enough of a problem that his Jamaican mother packed him off to a military academy. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and honored by the Maryland College Football Hall of Fame. As a Rhodes scholar, he continued his focus on international relations, earning a master’s degree from the University of Oxford. In 2005, he deployed with the 82nd Airborne Division, 1st Brigade, to Afghanistan and spearheaded the American response plan for the Afghan Reconciliation Program, boosting program participation from five to 500 insurgents.

Moore serves on the board of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and the Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees. He is also founder of STAND! (Students Taking a New Direction), which works with Baltimore youth in the criminal justice system. Moore explains, “I believe public service does not have to be an occupation, but a way of life.”

Fun Facts

First car: Jeep Cherokee
First job: Construction worker
Favorite sports team: Baltimore Ravens
What artist would you go on tour with: Stevie Wonder
Favorite singer: Miriam Makeba
Favorite food: Anything Jamaican