Investment firm Virtus Partners started with four people, and for 15 years kept 400 more employed. Joe Elston was partner and co-founder of the company that provided fixed income assets for hedge funds, private equity funds, separate accounts and collateralized debt obligations—or, the thing that brought down the world economy in 2008. That was until he sold it in 2020 to embrace the next adventure. His life has always been a little like that.
“We never laid off a single person, even in the depths of the recessions that occurred during that time,” Elston said. “We contributed and made people just a little bit better. If you can do that in your lifetime, just make things a little bit better, you can chalk that up as a success.”
Elston was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, graduated from Southern Methodist University with a business degree, and wanted to fly jets for the Navy. He instead went to officer candidate school for surface warfare. “I liked adventure and being able to travel internationally,” Elston said. “Being able to go in the military and see all these different things allowed me to satisfy this adventurous streak in me.”
His shore duty was to teach at an ROTC unit of his choice. Never having been in the Midwest, he took a chance at Nebraska. The Nebraka Nice mantra took him by surprise—people everywhere treated him as if they were his neighbor. While he was there, he secured his master’s and Ph.D. in political science at faculty price.
“The degrees at Nebraska gave me this background to know about many different facets of the international political scene,” Elston said. “But what it really helped me with was analyzing, taking a set of problems, coherently bringing them together, or breaking them apart to analyze them and come to a conclusion relatively quickly.”
This is exactly what you have to do in business, Elston said. So, after graduation he moved to Houston to enter the bank training program at JPMorgan, choosing to work in a corporate finance group that provides administration on collateralized debt obligations. Eventually he and three other people thought they could do better. So Virtus Partners was formed, partnered with Citibank who provided seed capital, breaking the administrative role into separate branches for analytics and trustee. The rest is history, but only because he felt empowered to take chances.
“You have to take some risks and make relatively smart decisions,” Elston said. “In taking risks you’re going to make some mistakes but that’s a part of life.”
Though Elston isn’t working a 9-to-5 job anymore, he’s looking for ways he can help, like providing people a similar opportunity. Teaming up with his former adviser and professor David Forsythe, Elston created a $15,000 fellowship in his name to recognize excellence in graduate research for human rights and political science. It means a lot when Elston gets to meet the students, see the impact he’s made.
“It really brings joy to my heart to see these people use the resources that are there, and pursue excellence,” Elston said. “I was just really happy to see how I could change just a little bit of someone’s life in a better way.”
