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Auburn Ave. Magazine - An Interview with Tyrone Wideman, President/CEO of The Urban Financial Services Group
Auburn : First and foremost thank you for giving http://www.auburnavemag.com/ an opportunity to interview you. You are the Owner and President of The Urban Financial Services Group; before will get into your other projects, can you talk about the objective/purpose of The Urban Financial Services Group?
Tyrone: Personal Urban Financial Services sole purpose is to provide a vehicle that will allow minority business owners to obtain guidance on problem solving skills from successful business owners at no cost.
Auburn : Your professional experience includes a 30-year banking career where you worked as the Vice President of The Fiduciary and Estate Tax Group for 15 years. How has this experience contributed your experience as the Owner and President of The Urban Financial Services Group?
Tyrone: As a manager/Vice of the Fiduciary Income Tax Service, I handled tax preparation responsibility for over 12,000 accounts. My responsibilities included managing over 35 tax analysts, developing projects that consisted of business processing resigned and improvements, and the Chairperson of the business Diversity Council that reported directly to the CEO of the company.
As a manager, my role consisted of running my division as if it was my own company; having such duties as budgeting, forecasting, hiring, firing, and the development of staff which truly prepared me run my company.
Auburn : Can you talk about your involvement as a managing member of R.R. Investments, LLC?
Tyrone: The role of this company is to identify areas across the country that are in need of development which consist of improvement in housing as well as employment. Our role overall is a massive undertaking to improve the minority communities. Our current project is in Cleveland , Mississippi .
Auburn : You are also a managing member of Street Legends, LLC. For those who may be unfamiliar, can you tell us a little bit about this project? Also, what prompted your involvement in this project?
Tyrone: Originally, this project was named the "The Game." Marvin Johnson and I partnered in building a facility that would be the home of basketball tournaments, after school programs for children, and mentoring programs for youth. This was a dream of Marvin Johnson for his love of the game. We are in the process of raising funds for this project. One of the fund raising projects is been called "Street Legends". This project was designed to honor those individuals that never made it to the professional ranks of basketball because they made one wrong decision, or took a wrong turn, or was not political correct. Honestly, most of the “Street Legends" are better than most of your professionals. We are building a Hall of Fame to honor such individuals and the creation of a clothing line to raise funds.
Auburn : What is the most pertinent trail and tribulation you have experienced and overcome as a business owner?
Tyrone: As a business owner you must be a visionary because it's difficult for everyone to see what you see! From family and friends, no one has the same compassion for your dream as you do. All working managers are somewhat too critical on their employees and we must be able to allow employees to contribute their ideas to the process.
Auburn : What advice would you offer to aspi ring b usiness owners?
Tyrone: Listen to other good business owners and don't confuse good managers with good owners. If a good manger takes over the process and it remains the same from one year to the next, he would be happy. If a good owner takes that same process and if it remains the same for over year, he would consider himself to be a failure. A good owner prides himself on improving a process over the period of time.
Auburn : What is the most interesting thing about you outside of your business ventures?
Tyrone: Providing financial advice to churches is something that I truly enjoy. It enables me to use my gifts from God for the kingdom of God !
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