02/10/2022
We're spending Black History Month celebrating some of the trailblazing Black Americans who have played key roles in our industry. In 1953, Ernesta Procope founded E.G. Bowman Co., Inc. an insurance broker in Brooklyn, N.Y. She became known as the “The First Lady of Wall Street” after she relocated the business to Wall Street in 1979. That historic move made her insurance brokerage firm the first and largest Black-owned and woman-owned business on Wall Street. Her company grew to become the largest minority-owned insurance company in the United States and is still in business. E.G. Bowman Company, Inc. assembled a corporate client base that included American Express Co., Philip Morris Cos., Tiffany & Co., Avon Products Inc., and RJR Nabisco Inc. She recently died on November 30, 2021 at the age of ninety-eight.
