Ibrahim Cissé

I came to France from Mali at nineteen years old, with two hundred euros, a mathematics degree that nobody in France would recognize, and a willingness to start over. Within five years I had a French mathematics degree. Within ten I was a financial analyst at a Paris bank. Within fifteen I had paid off my debts, sent enough money home that my younger brother could finish university, and started a small consulting practice on the side. The path was not romantic. It was a long series of small, careful decisions about money that compounded over time.

I now help African brothers — primarily in Europe, though I work with brothers in North America as well — untangle the money knot. What I mean by 'the money knot' is the specific tangle that catches almost every brother in the African diaspora: how do you save with a modest income when family expects support, when the cost of living in your adopted city eats most of what you earn, when you have never been taught the basics of investing, and when the financial advice you find online assumes a different starting point than yours.

My approach is concrete. We do not start with portfolio theory or with discussion of macroeconomic conditions. We start with a worksheet that maps where your money is actually going. The first session is usually a humbling session for the brother — most of us have a story about our money that does not match the actual numbers — and it is a freeing session. Once we know the numbers, we can do something with them.

From there, we work on three areas in sequence. The first is stabilization — building an emergency fund, paying down high-interest debt, getting the cash-flow picture under control. The second is investment — the basics of low-cost index investing, the retirement accounts available in your country, the question of whether and how to invest in real estate, the question of whether to send money back home through formal channels (which I generally recommend) or informal channels (which I do not, except in narrow situations). The third is what I call architecture — the long-term structure of your finances over the next decade, including taxes, estate planning when relevant, and the relationship between your money and the rest of your life.

I am especially careful with brothers in the family-support conversation. Many of us send substantial money home — to parents, siblings, the home village, the school construction project — and we do it without ever having the conversation with the family about what is sustainable. The conversation is difficult. It is also necessary. I help brothers prepare for it. I do not tell brothers to send less; I tell brothers to send what they can sustain and to be honest about what that is.

My rate is ninety dollars per hour, with a free thirty-minute first call. Sessions are by video, in English or French (I work fluently in both, and Bambara for the brothers who prefer it). I work in arcs of three months or six months rather than open-ended engagements; the work tends to need that kind of structure to get anywhere. After our work together ends, brothers often come back for occasional check-in sessions at major life events — a marriage, a child, a new job, a big purchase — and I am happy to do that.

I do not give specific investment advice. I help brothers understand the principles well enough to make their own decisions, often in partnership with a licensed financial advisor in their own country. I also do not promise outcomes. The brothers who do this work well are the brothers who are honest with themselves about where they are now. The rest follows.