Magnus Greaves

Advisory Board, 100 Urban Entrepreneurs

“There’s a 1-in-100,000 chance that a kid will become successful as a rapper or athlete, but a 1-in-10 chance that he’ll become successful in business with the same effort,” says Magnus Greaves, cofounder of 100 Urban Entrepreneurs.

Greaves, 37, knows whereof he speaks: A self-taught trader, the Vancouver native left college early, moving to London in 1994 to stake his claim in the British capital’s cutthroat financial sector. Rising rapidly, he soon cofounded MacFutures, an independent firm that presciently seized on the global shift toward electronic trading. By 2003, MacFutures had expanded its operations to Paris, Chicago and Montreal; that year, Greaves sold the firm to Refco, an industry giant at the time.

In late 2004, Greaves founded Doubledown Media, a New York–based publisher of luxury-lifestyle magazines including Trader Monthly, Dealmaker, Corporate Leader, Private Air and The Cigar Report. With Doubledown catering to professionals who had already achieved great success, Greaves — who in the meantime had been named one of Black Enterprise magazine’s top 40 businesspeople under age 40 — shifted his focus to those at the other end of the economic spectrum: young entrepreneurs from economically disadvantaged communities, who brimmed with ambition and drive but had neither the connections nor the resources to attract investment capital. The nonprofit foundation 100 Urban Entrepreneurs was born.

Greaves’s efforts on behalf of this group have been tireless; he’s traveled widely to speak to audiences encompassing inner-city middle-school students and active entrepreneurs alike about smart investing, business management and financial independence. Accordingly, 100 Urban Entrepreneurs’ goal for the next 12 months is to provide $10,000 in startup financing, as well as intensive mentoring and networking, to 100 young entrepreneurs in urban communities throughout the United States.

In addition to launching 100 Urban Entrepreneurs, meanwhile, Greaves dipped a toe back into the print-media waters in 2009 when he founded MYMAG, which publishes limited-edition magazines edited by celebrities for distribution to their most ardent fans. Among the tastemakers he’s partnered with to produce MYMAGs are hip-hop icon and businessman Sean “Diddy” Combs; iconic spiritualist and healer Deepak Chopra; movie director Brett Ratner; actress and television host Olivia Munn; actor Danny Trejo; and world-renowned club DJ Steve Aoki.