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Our story
You're gaining opportunity faster than anyone is teaching you what to do with it. We close that gap, and build what outlasts the game.
Founded by a Division I athlete and attorney. Advised by a WNBA champion, a 13-year NBA veteran, and a Merrill Lynch wealth executive.
Mission & Vision
Mission
We help you build influence, ownership, and a legacy beyond the game.
Representation is where we start, not what we sell. You stay the CEO of your own career.
Vision
Every athlete should leave the game with more than they came in with, and the means to lift the place that raised them.
So we work legal-first: contracts reviewed to the standard of billion-dollar M&A, NIL deals structured to protect your eligibility, financial education that starts before the first cheque clears, and the structure to turn giving back into a foundation that outlives your career.
Core values
01
Every deal, every decision, every conversation, guided by principle, and documented so you can check.
02
We plan for the contract after this one. Decisions get made against a ten-year map, not a season.
03
We measure success not in seasons but in decades.
04
Giving back should be structured, not sentimental, a foundation with governance, not a photo opportunity.
05
We treat every athlete as one of our own, and we work with the people around you rather than around them.
Meet the founder
Division I
Athlete
Attorney
Law · Strategy · Advocacy
$1B+ M&A
Contractual experience
National
Champion
USA Today · AP
D'Juan Neal understands athletes from every angle, as a competitor, an attorney, and a finance professional.
From the AAU circuit to a USA Today and Associated Press high school national championship to Division I competition, he lived the demands and complexities that shape an athlete's career. Then he spent the years after it in Washington, New York and Atlanta, building expertise in law, strategy and advocacy, including contractual work on billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions.
That background is why APG works legal-first, and why athlete contracts here get the rigour normally reserved for corporate transactions.
Along the way he saw the gap: young athletes were gaining visibility and money faster than ever through NIL, and almost none of them had the mentorship or structure to convert it into anything lasting.
D'Juan Neal
President & Chief Executive Officer
Every athlete is the CEO of their own career. Our job is to build the legal, financial and strategic infrastructure underneath it, not to take the wheel.
Aster & Pepper Group was created to fill that gap: an enterprise approach that turns athletic opportunity into generational wealth, while you keep control of your brand, your marketing and your positioning.
"Don't let what you're good at define who you are. Who are you if you can't do what you're good at?"
Nikki Teasley · WNBA Champion · APG Advisory Board
Advisory board
Six people who have already done what you are about to do, win at the highest level, leave the game, and build something after it. They shape how this firm thinks, and their networks are open to our clients.
No. 5 overall pick in the 2002 WNBA Draft; hit the series-clinching three that won the Sparks their second straight championship. Played professionally across seven countries, then moved into coaching and mentorship.
What she brings you
Mentorship, and an honest account of what the years after the last game actually look like.
Played for the SuperSonics, Hawks and 76ers across thirteen NBA seasons, then ran Overtime Elite, the professional league for elite high-school athletes. Son and nephew of NBA players.
What he brings you
How elite programs evaluate young athletes, from someone who did the evaluating.
Two decades advising high-net-worth individuals and families on wealth strategy. Co-founded and ran a youth basketball camp in New Jersey for over ten years; former AmeriCorps teacher in Washington, DC.
What she brings you
How wealthy families actually structure and preserve money, the model behind APG University.
Intellectual property attorney who advised Fortune 100 companies on trademark, copyright, licensing and brand protection, then led state policy for Microsoft across the Southeast.
What she brings you
How you own your name, likeness and marks, and stop other people from using them.
17th overall pick by the Atlanta Hawks in 1999; three NBA seasons before playing internationally. Now Managing Partner of 610 Media Group and VP of the Atlanta chapter of Legends of Basketball.
What he brings you
Media and entertainment relationships, and the transition out of playing from someone who made it.
Two decades developing athletes and building programs. Led recruiting, planning and player development at Utah State; previously built nationally recognised programs at Trinity Collegiate School.
What he brings you
Recruiting strategy and development, from inside a Division I program.
The Advisory Board is not involved in day-to-day management of the firm; its members serve as mentors and strategic thought partners.
Athletes, families, brand partners, and investors, if you're aligned with our mission, let's connect.