By Ebimo Amungo
David Adeyemi Adefeso has a growing profile in America, not least because he is the boyfriend of singer and reality television star, Tamar Braxton, but also because he is a Certified Public Accountant, a Harvard Business School trained wealth management adviser and owner Sootchy Inc, a company that finding solutions to one of America’s most intractable problems, Student Loans.
David Adefeso is the Chief Executive Officer of The Pacific Group, an investment advisory, asset management and financial services firm headquartered in Los Angeles, where he has worked since 2002. The company specializes in corporate services like risk management and personal finance.
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Born and brought up in Nigeria
According to public records, Adefeso was born on November 23, 1969 in Lagos, Nigeria, where he was raised. He came to the United States when he was 21 years old. Adefeso disclosed in a Facebook post that he first flew to New York City from Lagos with $250.00 in cash on him. He had no job, nor a place to live. Nonetheless, he was determined to succeed and prosper.
Certified Public Accounted and Harvard Business School Graduate
Within a couple of years of his arrival in America, David Adefeso got certified as a Certified Public Accountant, CPA, which is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. Adefeso passed all four parts of the CPA exam on his first try when he was 22 years old.
He would later enroll in Harvard Business School, becoming one of the youngest MBA students in one of the country’s most prestigious Ivy League schools. Soon after graduating in 1996, he embarked on a career in Wall Street at only 26 years old. In fact he attributed his Harvard Business School training for a large part of his professional success.
Accountant and Financial Consultant
David Adefeso has worked as an accountant in Los Angeles., auditing reviews and financial statements for corporate and government clients. He eventually worked as an investment banker in Solomon Brothers, and later as financial adviser with Bruce Wasserstein, the American investment banker, businessman, and writer who owned the private equity firm Wasserstein & Co. in New York. During this period, David Adefeso worked on several transactions involving with global conglomerates. By the age of 32 he was already multi-millionaire.
Founder of Sootchy student loans app
David Adefeso is the founder and CEO of Sooty Inc. which has developed the the college savings app, Sootchy. The app was designed to reduce college debt and is a tax-free method for parents to save for their children’s college tuition and expenses.
According to Adefeso, Sootchy.com is “a technology venture powered by a smart artificial intelligence driven system with one objective in mind: completely eliminate the need for student loans in America. We will use technology to fix what is broken and give our children a chance,”.
He invested his own money in it and hired a team of the “smartest” software engineers to make it a reality. With Sootchy, Adefeso hopes to make education accessible for many. An accomplishment which he says will make him feel fulfilled.
David and Tamar Braxton
In September 2018, singer and reality tv star, Tamar Braxton appeared on The Wendy Williams Show and announced that she had been dating David Adefeso for three months, since meeting him at a friend’s birthday party.
Since then, Tamar’s and David’s relationship have been in the media almost daily. Their Instagram messages supporting each other has been reported in celebrity media outlets.
Stand out events since there relationship became public has included their visit together to Nigeria in August of 2019 as well as holidays in Mexico and other exotic cities. Adefeso has also appeared in Tamars latest music video.
There has been increasing speculation of the two getting married. Indeed, Tamar has recently referred to David Adefeso as her husband in reply to one of his Instagram posts.
Instagram and Facebook influencer
David Adefeso has taken advantage of the media attention and his rising popularity to increase his social media visibility.
Once a quiet and reticent person, David now has a steady output of Instagram and Facebook posts where he talks of the intricacies of investing in bonds, the stock exchange and other matters of personal finance.
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