Founder of Georgia-based community lender to retire, new CEO named

After 24 years at the helm of Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs (ACE), a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution based in Georgia, Grace Covington Fricks is stepping down.

Fricks, the CDFI’s founder, president and CEO, will retire at the end of December and pass the reins to Martina Edwards, a history-making former stockbroker who now serves as ACE’s Chief of Strategic Partnerships.

“The future of ACE is firmly in the hands of the next generation of leadership – our collective of talented individuals led by Martina Edwards,” Fricks said in a statement announcing the change . “She is the right person, in the right place, at the right time.”

In 2004, Edwards became the first Black female broker for Merrill Lynch on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, according to a 2004 internal report by the brokerage, and one of the few Black women ever in that position for any investment firm.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Edwards joined ACE in 2019 and told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview that she wanted to help business owners access capital where there have traditionally been barriers.

“We’re here to try to level the playing field around the disinvestment that happened in people and places that created decades of inequity,” Edwards said.

CDFIs are financial institutions focused primarily on community development. They receive federal, state and private funding to redistribute to the community they serve.

Since 2000, ACE has provided more than $200 million in loans to entrepreneurs building a business in Georgia, with a focus on women, people of color, and low-to-moderate income people. The nonprofit also provides business advising services.

One of ACE’s clients is a former nurse turned business owner in Hapeville who wanted to create healthy options for her community, Edwards said. The nurse took over an existing health store in the area, then ACE provided the funding to add a smoothie bar, improve refrigeration and eventually purchase the entire strip mall where her store was.

“She went to several traditional banking institutions who would not take a chance on her,” Edwards said. “We gave her that chance. She’s successful, she’s doing well, she’s opened her second shop.”

Edwards also sits on the advisory board for local venture capital firm Zane Venture Fund.

She starts as ACE’s new president and CEO on Jan. 1, 2025.

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