Napoleon Nelson, 1974

Napoleon Nelson '74 earned a BS in Management (Course XV) in 1975 from MIT, where he served as Educational Counselor from 1985 to 1992.

I had some interest in business because my father was a businessman. So I looked at business and finance [in the MIT course catalog]...I thought I was good at math, but I was good at numbers--and they're quite different at MIT...The abstract sort of study of math was not something that I had any particular skill in, but numbers I could manipulate in my head.

Napoleon Nelson in Technology and the Dream by Clarence G. Williams (MIT Press, 2001)

Nelson worked as regional specialist at IBM (1974-79) and management consultant at Ernst & Whitney (1979-81). After earning an MBA in Finance (1983) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, he served as management consultant and partner at Public Financial Management, Inc. (1983-87, 1990), then as director of finance at the Philadelphia Port Corporation (1987-90). During the late 1990s, Nelson was lead advisor to the then financially distressed District of Columbia. He and his team helped regain "access to the bond market, restoring the District's autonomy from the U.S. Congress."

Nelson is founding President of G-Entry Principle, P.C. (GEP), a company that provides financial advisory services to governments, their authorities, and other non-profit organizations.