Citigroup vice chairman Ray McGuire: 'Education was our ticket'

Citigroup Vice Chairman Ray McGuire joins "Squawk Box" to discuss the role of corporate leaders to address inequality in the United States, and how important education was to his early life.

McGuire said one way the U.S. can begin to address racial inequality is through the education system. Growing up “the other side of the tracks” in Dayton, Ohio, McGuire said the opportunity to be bused to the suburbs beginning in middle school helped make his more than 30-year Wall Street career possible.

“This is not about me. This is about all those kids who look like me and many who don’t,” said McGuire, a graduate of Harvard’s law and business schools. “Education was our ticket. And today, the educational system is simply reflective of the institutional racism that we’ve experienced for at least 400 years.”

Another black business leader, Kenneth Frazier, CEO of pharmaceutical giant Merck, told CNBC last week his life also was altered by being bused from inner-city Philadelphia to a school more than an hour away.

“I know for sure that what put my life on a different trajectory was that someone intervened to give me an opportunity, to close that opportunity gap,” he said. “And that opportunity gap is still there.”

McGuire said corporate America needs to have courage in the months and years ahead.

“We need to have the conviction to change the mindset,” he said, arguing that charitable giving and statements alone “do not begin to get to the systemic racism.”

“I live through the crisis and the systemic racism every single day, but I say, ‘Maybe George Floyd is different,’” said McGuire, who has been mentioned as a possible New York mayoral candidate in next year’s election.

Asked about a possible run, McGuire said he has “received similar phone calls” asking him the same question. He said he believes leaders must decide how they will make a difference.

“We need to do whatever we can and commit every resource that we have ... to combat this 400 years of systemic racism across every one of the important areas: education, economics, criminal injustice and health care,” McGuire said. “I will do whatever it is that I can ... to take on, or to continue to have, a leadership role in this great city of ours.”

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