HAMZA USMAN
ASSOCIATE
Hamza’s journey to Arcadia wends from Nigeria to the Bronx, and finally through Massachusetts (Concord and Cambridge). He would say, and we would agree, that his journey is one that help hone his innate intellectual versatility. Hamza’s earliest exposure to the industry came at age 16 where he interned with the LevFin group at JP Morgan in the summers of his junior and senior years at Middlesex School. From Middlesex, Hamza matriculated to Harvard College where he graduated as part of the Class of 2019 with a major in Economics, and secondaries in African American Studies and Spanish. His first foray into the world of investing helped spawn an interest that saw Hamza go on to explore private equity and venture capital at different firms during the summers between his undergraduate years. Upon graduating, Hamza received funding for an independent project where he and an artistically talented childhood friend founded an independent music record label, after which Hamza pivoted back to the financial services industry, this time with a focus on private debt and specialty financing here at Arcadia.
Hamza lends his flexibility and financial acumen to various segments of Arcadia, including but not limited to live deal flow analysis as well as fundraising. On a day-to-day basis, Hamza’s core work may fall anywhere in the investment pipeline—whether it be from inception during sourcing and introduction calls with prospective management teams looking to invoke Arcadia’s industry advisory and expertise, or tasks that arise later in the timeline of the partnership, such as assisting with the Fund’s weekly performance reviews of client investment pipelines or helping to create/implement systems that bolster the efficiency of both Arcadia and its balance sheet partners.
A huge basketball fan, Hamza can be regularly witnessed shaking his head at Arcadia’s founder’s inexplicable glorification of the Boston Celtics, which is usually accompanied by offsetting belittlement of the New York Knicks.