A Responsibility To Lead

These past five years as president and CEO of The Executive Leadership Council (ELC) have been incredibly gratifying for me and have gone by faster than I imagined. I am proud to say that I have served during a very exciting time in The ELC’s history. With exceptional support from The ELC’s board(s), members, partners and staff, I consolidated the Council and Foundation into one organization. We welcomed several hundred new members both domestically and abroad, and worked hard to retain the interest and participation of existing members. We made significant progress toward our goals of increasing global black leadership in C-Suites and on boards, tracking a net increase in the placement of black executives in nearly 190 board seats.

Of course, The ELC can’t take credit for all of those board seats. But I can assure you that without The ELC’s Corporate Board Initiative, sponsored by Heidrick & Struggles and EY, our collaboration with the Alliance for Board Diversity supported by Diversified Search and Deloitte, our advocacy for board diversity on Capitol Hill, at ELC events and strategic partner conferences, in media interviews and every C-Suite I visited, we would not have seen such progress. Still, we cannot and should not be satisfied.

After 31 years, The ELC has played an important role in advancing black leadership in business. We congratulate trail blazers like Ann Fudge, Ken Chenault, Ursula Burns, Ken Frazier, Carla Harris, Bernard Tyson many others who have helped inform and inspire new generations of leaders. Yet, we have recently witnessed an erosion in the number of black CEOs, a position of influence that has broad implications for business leadership and board nominations.

As I prepare to enter a new chapter in my life, you can be certain that I will remain an active and passionate ELC member. I will use every opportunity to promote global black leadership. I call on my fellow ELC members to join me on this mission to break down barriers and secure places for black leadership in global business and preparing future generations for roles and responsibilities in leadership.

Please help me in welcoming Otha "Skip " Spriggs III as The ELC’s new President and CEO. I am excited that Skip will join The ELC and serve as the new leader of this preeminent membership organization of global black business leaders. He will make a tremendous contribution to our organization as he embodies values that are important to all of our constituents.