Here is your Forbes Daily Briefing for Thursday, February 26th. Today on Forbes, meet Private Equity's

Pop Culture Queen. In early 2023, Cherise Clark, founder and CEO of Harborview Equity,

the Newark, New Jersey-based alternative asset firm informed her former mentor, Derek Jones,

then vice-chairman of the investment giant G.C.M. Grovener that she was bidding to acquire

the cable network Black Entertainment Television, or BET, from Paramount Global. Impressed by Clark's

ambition, Tyler Perry, Shaquille O'Neal and others were

rejected for bids below the $3 billion asking price, Jones was also perplexed by it. At the time,

Harbor View had around $1 billion in assets under management, and Jones joked that her firm was a

minnow attempting to swallow a whale.

Jones recalls, quote, she got upset when I said that. But Clark eventually laughed it off.

She tells Forbes, quote, the next time I saw him, I said, hello, my name is Minow. The 49-year-old

Clark adds, quote, I've never had a challenge with dreaming big,

like, okay, BET is for sale. Let's go figure it out. Why not us? Three years later, Clark is more

of a whale shark, with $2.7 billion in assets under management, largely due to her bold

strategy to acquire prestigious

music catalogs, including Bruno Mars's songwriter and producer James Fontoroy, Nellie,

Justin Bieber, Fleetwood Mac, Kelly Clarkson, Fat Joe, and Tepane. And she ranks among the elite

investors on the 26 Forbes BLK-50 Money Masters,

a list highlighting black leaders in private equity, private credit, and venture capital.

Name-checking the billionaire tech entrepreneur who founded Vista Equity Partners,

Clark says, quote, think of me as an aspiring Robert Smith. He built a private equity

business around enterprise software. We are doing that in the business of culture. Harborview now

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