Before he ran a family office, Jean-Pierre Conte was a kid in Brooklyn and then New Jersey whose parents hadn’t gone to college. What he lacked in family connections he made up for through the relationships his father built behind a clothing counter, where he sold suits to Wall Street professionals who took an interest in the tailor’s son.
That head start left him with a question most donors never sit with. Once you’ve crossed the gap yourself, what do you owe the people still standing on the other side of it?
The information gap, defined plainly
Conte calls the barrier an information gap, and he means something specific: the quiet knowledge advantage that flows to children whose parents already know how college admissions, internships, and career ladders actually work. “They gave me internships, mentoring, good advice, and it really helped close the information gap, which exists when your parents don’t go to college or aren’t on that track,” Conte said.
Kids without that pipeline have plenty of talent. What they lack is a map, and nobody hands them one at the moment it counts most.
A household long on ambition
His parents made the climb steeper. His father, Pierre, left France after the Nazi occupation, and his mother, Isabel, came from Cuba looking for a fresh start. The family settled first in Brooklyn and later New Jersey on a modest income.
The experience left Conte with a real empathy for students who reach a starting line already a few steps back, and it explains why first-generation students keep turning up at the center of his giving rather than its edges.
Why he starts earlier than most
His giving used to focus on college students, until he noticed the trouble started well before freshman year. “A light went off, and I said, ‘By the time the student gets to university, especially some of these universities, they’re now focused on the money issue.’ And I came to the conclusion that I need to start sooner, in high school or earlier, to really help change the trajectory,” Conte said.
SEO Scholars now reaches students in eighth or ninth grade with Saturday classes and summer sessions, and the Conte First Generation Fund sits at 11 universities, among them his alma maters Colgate and Harvard.
From beneficiary to builder
What defines Conte is the move from receiving guidance to building it for other people. He shows up for the annual talks, argues for the leadership changes, and treats the program’s growth like a portfolio he’s accountable for.
That accountability carries a dollar figure. SEO’s expansion into Miami-Dade County, launched in February 2025, is projected to run past $30 million over eight years to serve hundreds of students who look a lot like he once did.
