Frantz Alphonse ’90 Delivers This Year’s MLK Hall Talk

“We are all… tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. …before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half of the world. We aren’t going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
-The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On January 21, Roxbury Latin welcomed back Frantz Alphonse, Class of 1990, who delivered the address at the school’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall. Frantz is co-founder and senior managing director of AP Capital Holdings (APCH) and co-founder of AP Capital Partners. In his role with APCH, he advises individuals in some of the world’s largest corporations so they can influence wide-scale positive change. His book, Total Inclusion Capitalism, which outlines his corporate problem-solving model Simultaneous Outcome Thinking, is due out in 2021. The above quote from Martin Luther King, Frantz shared on Tuesday, is the sum total of his life’s work.

Now more than ever, Frantz asserted, the world is in desperate need of selfless leadership. “I am convinced that how our corporate sector approaches three emerging challenges—climate and sustainability; technology and the third industrial revolution; and equal access and wealth inequality—will be critical to the well-being of us all,” he said. Frantz’s corporate strategy allows companies to address all three challenges simultaneously. The third challenge, he says, is the nearest and dearest to his heart. While wealth inequality isn’t only an issue of race, Frantz did share two startling facts: according to the Institute for Policy Studies, the average African-American household has lost 75% of its wealth in the last 30 years. The average Latino household has lost 50% of its wealth in the same time period. It is critical, Frantz said, for our powerful corporate entities to tackle the human rights challenges of our time and to, as he put it, “commit to a larger vision of ourselves.”

Frantz expressed gratitude to his RL masters for teaching him how to do this kind of thinking. Finding one elegant solution that can address a number of problems at the same time is a passion and a skill that began for him in the classrooms of the Perry building, in Mr. Buckley’s art classroom, and in Rousmaniere Hall, where he stood Tuesday morning. He encouraged every boy in the Hall to remain dedicated to a life of service, to acting for something larger than himself. “It is a heroic act to serve,” he stated.

Frantz continued the year’s 375th anniversary series of alumni—“Men of RL”—returning to campus to share their experiences and perspectives—personal and professional—intended to inform and inspire today’s students and offer a window into what’s possible.