Name: Jae Gardner Age: 29 Profession: Founder of Ivy Key, a New York City-based education company that offers top quality tutoring, test prep, and admissions consulting. I have put my passion to purpose by: expanding elite tutoring services to students and organizations in disenfranchised communities across the New York metropolitan area. When the Great Recession, also known as the financial crisis, occurred in 2008, native New Yorker, and Harvard graduate Jae Gardner realized there was a growing need for affordable education that provided the same robust instruction as other higher priced services. "My goal was to even the educational playing field by providing elite tutoring to students and communities who could not afford it in past years," Gardner tells BE Modern Man. "After providing a free SAT course to students at School of the Future in Manhattan and increasing their scores on average by 200 points, it became apparent that providing this type of service to world was my life's mission." Recognized in 2009 by NY1 News, for his college preparation work with various public high schools in New York City, Gardner co-founded the Ivy Key to exemplify the skills needed to unlock the door to a successful high school, college and professional career. The Ivy Key has an impressive track record of helping thousands of students with coursework and standardized tests via partnerships with public and private institutions. Ivy Key instructors have also assisted families in the high school and college admissions process, and many students have gained admittance prestigious schools such as Harvard University, MIT Sloan School of Management and Phillips Academy Andover. In an industry where the presence of black men is rare, Gardner's focus on education, and more specifically the Ivy League tutoring market, is a breath of fresh air. "Beyond just tutoring, I make sure that instructors at the Ivy Key couple their services with mentoring to provide every student with a well-rounded understanding of the world. I believe that by mentoring students we can showcase to them that being smart and cool are not mutually exclusive," said Gardner. "We are championed in terms of sports and entertainment, but outside of those realms we are not seen as having enough knowledge to hold court with other individuals, especially in the field of education, Gardner told BE Modern Man exclusively. I wish more professors, lawyers, doctors, and politicians were given the same amount of coverage as our favorite musician and athlete. Young men follow what they see and read in the media. If their options are limited to the music studio and grass fields, they are not given many avenues to succeed." Gardner's hope is that young men of color see older Black men championing education as a viable career opportunity that can be lucrative in the future. Beyond providing tutoring and mentoring services to students, Gardner is on a mission to spotlight and involve more men in the field of education. "I believe that it is important that young men of color see older Black men championing education as a viable career opportunity that can be lucrative in the future. I want more men of color to become involved in education. Far too often, Black men are seen as these mindless brutes that can only catch a ball and sing a song. I want the world-at-large to know and recognize that we are intelligent enough to run a company, hold a political office, and save a life in an operating room." Read more on page 2... With so many questions and concerns swirling around the current state of education in this country, there remains one constant. The success of students. "My students are the driving force behind all my work," Gardner tells BE Modern Man. "I like to remind my students that my success is predicated on their academic improvement. Since I am not an individual who enjoys failure, my students' academic achievement pushes me to be a better educator, a more dynamic business person, and thoughtful person. A true feeling of euphoria always overcomes me whenever a student receives a test score or school admission that they believed was outside of their grasp." Gardner sees his company as his first child, and believes that it has helped him grow tremendously on a personal level. The ability to balance the financial, emotional and personal well-being of his staff and clients has forced him to raise his level of maturity at a much younger age. He tells BE Modern Man "The key piece of advice that I would offer to the younger generation is to treat every day like Monday, and constantly try to perfect your craft. Success is predicated not on your wins, but on one's ability to withstand the downturns internally in your company and externally in the market." One of the pitfalls Gardener encountered during his professional career was hiring friends to work at his company as instructors. Initially, it seemed like a good idea because they came from the same academic environment and had a similar outlook for providing education. However, he found that at times they would not fulfill their duties because they would believe that they had more leeway than other employees based on the nature of friendship. "These presumptions would soon cause rifts personally and professionally," says Gardner. "I would recommend that an aspiring entrepreneur separate professional business and personal relationships." After working non-stop to build and grow his business, Gardner was forced to face one of his most challenging experiences. "After working with me for two years, my initial business partner wanted to pursue another profession and requested that I buy him out," Gardner tells BE Modern Man. "Since I had bootstrapped the company, financial resources were not in abundance. Between buying out my business partner, paying my staff and handling business expenses, I barely had enough money to even buy food." It was during this trying period in the company's history that Gardner fell in love with the Ivy Key more, because he realized how much I was sacrificing for its success. The sacrifice has paid off for both Gardner and the company. "Nothing warms my heart more than to have a parent call our office and thank us for the academic and social enrichment that we provided to their child," says Gardner. "My future goal is to expand our outreach and work with more students globally, most notably in the Caribbean and Africa. I believe that are very highly-educated students in these areas of the world, and they mere need more robust instruction and services to help them reach the next level of academia." Unconventional in his approach to preparing students for academic and career success, Gardner believes that a BE Modern Man is an individual who strives to innovate and galvanize their community. He says, "not only through your profession, but also with your personal actions. Even though you challenge the status quo and hope to make a new America, you still adhere to the virtues of a classic gentleman. One's ability to balance the traditions of the past and champion the ideas of future is what makes us a BE Modern man." The BlackEnterprise.com team salutes Jae Gardner for filling a gap that existed between affordable education and high level instruction in our most underserved communities. With a proven track record of success, we look forward to seeing Ivy Key reach students globally with instruction that will take them to the next level academically and professionally. It's our normal to be extraordinary. Follow @blackenterprise and join the BE Modern Man conversation using #BEModernMan.