All Photo Credit: Nathan Valentine
You may recognize Jean Alerte as the owner of PR/ Marketing firm Alerte Carter & Associates (ACA), representing an array of high-profile clientele including Trump Towers, Angela Simmons, Kevin Hart and much more. At the age of 30, Alerte has had his share of accomplishments. Alerte, took time to sit with FUZION Magazine at his new yogurt shop Brooklyn Swirl and share how he turned his dreams into a reality with family, new business ventures, and how he plans to pass the torch along to others through his new empowering piece of literature Do Right, Do Good.
Alerte sought to fill a void for those seeking fulfillment and entrepreneurship through Do Right Do Good. “I am trying to target anybody who ever had a vision that had a desire to do. They feel like they can, but something is holding them back. I want to share the principles that I have in my life,” said Alerte. For this emerging business mogul, sharing his secrets to success comes with the territory. “I don’t feel I need to be a billionaire first. I want to share while I am in the process of growing.”
Oddly enough, the steps leading to Alerte’s book stemmed from inspiration of youth whom he mentored. Mentoring youth is a huge part of Alerte’s core and has been since his late teen years. “I spoke at schools all around New York for the last 12 years since I was 18,” said Alerte. It was a NYC youth program where he spoke before kids. Alerte recalled a young student saying, “you inspire me, you should write a book. I told him I am not sure what I am going to write about. He said wait, you are making excuses?” From that day, his first book came into fruition. “I called up Zangba Thomson, one of the original people who told him to write the book. He said, ‘I already know what you called me for.’” This connection would be a successful one where he woulde met with Thomson everyday for two weeks from 7am-10pm in the mornings. At the conclusion of this 2 week session, Alerte’s book would be complete.
Inspite of a successful book, starting out from humble beginnings helped shape “Dream Catcher” Alerte. “I never stop,” he said. “I see the world a little different based on how Haiti is and when you come to America you see the opportunities there are in this country.” This would lead him to his first lucrative job as a mortgage broker. Although this was a successful period, to Jean, it was mediocre. He needed to control his own on who he helped and how he helped them and made a leap of faith.
Everything Alerte has touched turned to gold. He credits it to the fact that “I don’t stop, until I win. Some people quit when they fall the first time, not me. I fall, get back up, and start running again- full speed.” Alerte’s first official big break came when he was offered the opportunity to host comedian Kevin Hart’s first concert at the age of 28, which was sold out. “People thought I was going to fail when I did my first concert with Kevn Hart, because black shows don’t do well in Westbury and I didn’t have a track record of shows, but I sold out 3,000 seats and ended up working with Kevin and Tamar Bazin, my partner at ACA. From there, I ended up working with so many different people off of someone thinking that we were going to fail.”
He is now the founder of a PR firm (Alerte Carter & Associates ), a wholesale jewelry company (Julian Cashmir), named after his late grandfather, a concert production company( A&S Global Visions) and a yogurt shop ( Brooklyn Swirl) co-owned with his wife. Additionally, he started a mobile website (Get app me) and is now an author.
