Judith Aidoo is Chief Executive of Caswell Capital Partners, LLC, (“Caswell”), a New York based merchant bank, and Caswell Communications, Inc. (“CasCom”), a domestic media and entertainment investment company. Since 2003, Caswell has provided or secured nearly $220 million in senior and mezzanine debt for small and medium sized companies, with a focus on licenses, franchises and intellectual property.
Judith began her career as an investment banker in 1987 with Goldman, Sachs & Co., where she specialized in structured finance. In 1991, she started her own firm to both advise and invest globally in technology; telecommunications and media; financial services; and real estate. Her clients have included sovereign governments, multinational corporations and large institutional investors. For one African commercial bank, Ms. Aidoo developed and managed an innovative securitization program that raised $500 million to refinance dollar-denominated trade loans of large exporters in 22 African countries. This deal was historic in its structure and it received the highest possible short-term credit rating from Standard & Poor’s (A1+) and Fitch Investor Service (F1+). She also identified and executed mergers and acquisitions in telecommunications and media and entertainment. One such transaction involved the acquisition of certain telecommunication assets in emerging markets for the Titan Corporation, before it was acquired by L-3 Communications, the NYSE listed technology and defense company (ticker: LLL).
Judith’s current investment portfolio includes media and entertainment (broadcast radio, including an FCC license for WAYA-FM in Charleston, SC; towers; movie libraries and theater production); commercial and residential real estate; and she is looking at expanding into the natural resource and environmental services sectors.
Ms. Aidoo has been honored for her business accomplishments and philanthropy as an upcoming inductee into the Rutgers University African American Alumni Hall of Fame, and as a board member of the following institutions: co-chair of Harvard Law School’s Class of 1987 20th Reunion Committee; WNYC, the City of New York’s public radio station group chaired at the time by Mrs. Billie Tisch; President Clinton’s Transition Team, responsible for covering the Federal Reserve System of the US, and as a member of his U.S. Trade Advisory Committee chaired by the US Trade Representative at the time, Ms. Charlene Barshefsky; the US-South Africa Business Development Committee co-chaired by the US Secretaries of Commerce Brown and Daley; the Constituency for Africa; and the 2001 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute which emphasizes values-based leadership in business. Judith also had the honor of being nominated by her peers to the Governing Council of the Ghana Stock Exchange from 2002 to 2004, which had special significance given that she authored the original feasibility study for the Exchange as advisor to the World Bank and the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Ghana.
Ms. Aidoo is also a founding member of the African Women’s Development Fund; the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University’s Advisory Board; and a former investor and Chief Executive Officer of Capital Alliance Co., a boutique merchant bank; Caswell Communications, Inc., the operator of WPAL-FM, and one time owner and joint operator of WZJY 1480 AM, both in Charleston, SC. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Africa House at New York University, and on the Advisory Board of the Women’s Media Center co-founded by Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem.
Judith graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with high honors from Rutgers College in 1984 and from Harvard Law School in 1987. She has been a television contributor for MSNBC and CNN, and has been profiled and quoted in major business publications on investment matters including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Financial Times and Black Enterprise. Judith is also a fine art photographer and has studied under the celebrated photographer Alison Shaw.
In 2004, she was profiled on CNN, NPR, and the Oprah Winfrey Show with Tom Hanks, and several international press outlets regarding her efforts to assist a young Nigerian student attend Columbia University. Judith has since raised several hundreds of thousands of dollars to help scholars from the African diaspora to attend institutions of higher education, and she is helping to build elementary schools in Africa. Her efforts to finance education were recognized in October 2009 by the New York based HEAF.org foundation started by the Rose Family, an honor that she shared with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
Judith is an active speaker at leading business and law schools around the country, including Harvard, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, and Stanford. She has also taught several business courses at the University of Vermont. Moreover, her activities have been profiled in two books: “More than 85 Broads” by Janet Hanson, published by McGraw Hill (2006); and “Doing It for Ourselves: Success Stories of African American Women in Business” by Donna Ballard, Berkley Books (1997).