Dynamic diversity: The changing look of N.C. executive power - Share this story: Facebook

Dynamic diversity: The
changing look of N.C.
executive power
By BusinessNC Posted 02/01/2021 In February 2021

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North Carolina’s executive suites are diversifying, our first list of
power brokers from historically underserved communities shows.
Look for the pace to accelerate.

Valecia McDowell’s path from east Charlotte’s Independence High
School to a management committee post at Moore & Van Allen —
the largest law firm based in North Carolina — is a rarity. But
becoming its first Black female partner reflects the fulfillment of
a goal that the late Bill Van Allen had when he co-founded the
firm in 1951, she says.

“Bill wasn’t doing much legal work by then. But the day when I
made partner, he was sitting in my office, holding a note that he
had written,” McDowell says. “He told me how proud he was to
have me as a partner. It meant so much to me that he would
come to my office for that express purpose.”

McDowell credits her mother, who was a teacher, and other
educators with giving her the confidence to excel. As a Duke
University freshman, she was impressed but not intimidated with
classmates who spent summers traveling to Europe or attending
great education programs. “What I had was a lifetime with books,
arts, imagination and the confidence my teachers had given me
that I was as good as everyone around me.” She earned bachelor’s
and law degrees at Duke before joining Moore & Van Allen in
1998.

Powerful positions in North Carolina’s business and professional
communities are increasingly filled by people with diverse
backgrounds, thereby becoming more reflective of the overall
community. That’s clear from Business North Carolina’s report on
many of the state’s top nonwhite leaders who are building
significant companies or exerting major corporate clout.

We developed the list after asking for suggestions from various
sources and reporting by our editorial team. While Black
executives dominate, we also included Asian and Hispanic
leaders. The list doesn’t include government and political
officials.

Diversifying corporate America is a national priority, accelerating
following last year’s death of George Floyd that sparked a national
race-relations debate. Black employees held 3.3% of executive
and senior management roles in the U.S. in 2018, according to the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Fewer than 1% of
the CEOs of America’s 500 largest companies are Black, while
ethnic minorities overall made up 11%, The Wall Street Journal
reported in September. One of them is CEO Marvin Ellison of
Mooresville-based Lowe’s (Page 46.) Black people make up about
13% of the U.S. population.

A few people on the BNC list are prominent figures in North
Carolina, including CEOs Ellison, Tunde Sotunde of Blue Cross
and Blue Shield, and Gene Woods of Atrium Health. Many others
have lower-profile but critical roles in the ninth-most populous
state.

“With all the turmoil, there’s been significant progress, and that
should not be lost,” says Donald Thompson, CEO of the Raleigh-
based Walk West digital-marketing company. “There are racial
inequities and systemic racism, but there are also points of
progress where your lantern can shine if you are doing great
work.”

Thompson grew up in eastern North Carolina and dropped out of
East Carolina University before graduating because he wanted to
start making money.

A similar list of nonwhite powerbrokers 10 or 15 years ago would
be much shorter, says Thompson, who has led two companies
that were sold to larger firms. “That’s not because African
Americans were not creating opportunities in business and pop
culture and sports and life. But we’ve evolved to where there’s
enough of a voice that we have an opportunity to let our talents
shine.”

Many work for large companies, which underscores a concern of
Walter Davis, co-founder of Peachtree Providence Partners, a
private-equity and management advisory company in Charlotte
and Atlanta. “How many really successful Black entrepreneurs do
you know in Charlotte?” he asks. Davis previously had senior
lending posts at Bank of America and Wachovia.

“We’ve done a decent job of diversifying the high-profile roles in
the public sector,” he says. The Queen City’s mayor, police chief
and city manager and Mecklenburg County’s commission
chairman and public school superintendent are Black. “What we
haven’t done is hit the economic inclusion piece, especially from
an entrepreneurial level.”

The timing for ethnic executives to emerge may never have been
better. After Floyd’s death on May 25, many companies issued
statements pledging to boost their racial diversity and address
injustice. The Nasdaq stock exchange is suggesting a rule change
that would require its listed U.S. companies to have at least one
director who identifies as an “underrepresented minority” or as
LGBTQ+. The change also includes a requirement that an
additional director be female. Most companies would have as
many as two years to make the change.

None of the people interviewed say the path to power is easy.
After paying $192.5 million to settle a race-discrimination class-
action lawsuit in 2000, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola expanded its
ratio of Black workers in executive posts from 1.5% in 1998 to 15%
in 2010. The ratio then declined to 8% last year, despite big
changes in its hiring, promotion and compensation practices, The
Wall Street Journal reported last year.

Likewise, the number of Black executives in Charlotte-based
Bank of America’s executive ranks “did a lot of backsliding” after
Hugh McColl Jr. left as CEO in 2001, despite significant efforts by
his successors, Davis says.

Timing is a big factor. Davis left Wachovia in 2011 to help found
CertusBank based in Greenville, S.C. The group of Black bankers
raised $500 million and grew to $2 billion in assets with a couple
of acquisitions but fizzled within four years amid dissension with
its key investors. At the time, Davis says he concluded that “not
everyone is pulling for you when you look like us.”

Had CertusBank survived, however, it could have been well
positioned in the current environment in which many companies
— and megabanks such as Bank of America — are creating
partnerships to assist Black-owned financial institutions.

Moore & Van Allen’s McDowell says she’s gained the confidence to
expand her influence in ways different from the Southern
tradition of developing relationships through country club
memberships and golfing dates.

“A lot of people encouraged me to blend into that world, but it’s
not who I am,” she says. “I am not a golfer, and I don’t live in
[Charlotte’s] Myers Park [neighborhood], I live in Plaza Midwood.
I get the call because of the quality of work that I do and the way
that I do it.”

For Thompson, invitations to be a conference panelist for major
marketing and corporate director groups and a recent three-
hour dinner with the CEO of a $2 billion revenue company
suggest top executives are seeking diverse voices.

“More CEOs want to build great cultures, and they don’t want to
be on the wrong side of history,” he says. “They understand that
you need diversity of thought and multiple viewpoints at the
table to create a better company.”

Profiles were written by: Shannon Cuthrell, Vanessa Infanzon,
Edward Martin, David Mildenberg, Michael Solender and Taylor
Wanbaugh.

D. STEVE BOLAND
President of retail, Bank of America
Charlotte

After 30 years at the giant bank or its predecessor companies,
Boland heads one of its eight lines of business, is on the executive
management team, and is a vice chair of the Global Diversity and
Inclusion Council. His unit serves 33 million U.S. consumers who
borrow through mortgages, credit lines, credit cards and auto
loans. His oversight includes the lending officers who support
Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and Private Bank clients.

Boland, 52, is a New York City native who earned a bachelor’s in
organizational studies from Northwestern University. During his
career, he has lived in many cities for a range of assignments
including stints with Fleet Financial Group and Countrywide
Financial, which were acquired by BofA. He has spent the last five
years in Charlotte after moving from New York.

The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t depressed consumer interest in
homebuying, says Boland, who has spent much of his career in
mortgage-related roles. “Many first-time homebuyers are
entering the market or considering it, and we are helping them
through educational tools, grants and low down-payment loans
in many markets. These trends have underscored our
commitment to providing accessible digital tools, financial
education and affordable resources to help consumers improve
their financial lives.”

Boland represents BofA as a member of the Executive Leadership
Council, a Washington, D.C.-based national group that promotes
Black leadership in business. He is also chair of the Greater
Charlotte Cultural Trust Board and serves on the National Urban
League board of trustees.

MALCOMB COLEY
EY central region growth market leader, Charlotte managing
partner, Ernst & Young
Charlotte

Goldsboro native Coley developed an interest in accounting while
in high school, which led to bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
accounting from UNC Wilmington. He’s been with Ernst & Young,
an international accounting firm, for 17 years and oversees
approximately 1,700 professionals across tax, assurance, strategy
and transaction advisory. The company’s 200,000 clients in 150
countries include 84% of the Fortune Global 500. Coley’s focus is
on mining and minerals, manufacturing, retail, consumer
products and distribution companies. As central region growth
market leader, he’s engaged with entrepreneurial companies,
family enterprises, and businesses backed by venture capitalists
and private equity.

Coley, 55, also has a full slate of civic gigs. He’s in line to be chair
of the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance in 2022 and was
appointed to the North Carolina Ports Authority in 2020 by Gov.
Roy Cooper. He’s also involved with the United Way of Central
Carolinas and advisory boards of the business schools at UNC
Charlotte and UNC Wilmington. In late 2020, he joined with
former Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl Jr. and former Duke
Energy executive Lloyd Yates to form Bright Hope Capital, which
plans to invest in Black and Hispanic-owned companies in the
Charlotte area.

On PBS’ Roadtrip Nation program, Coley was quoted: “There is
nothing wrong with saying these three words: ‘I don’t know.’ We
don’t expect everybody to know everything. But be willing to
work hard to get to the point where you do know.”

TODD COLLINS
CEO, Red Hill Ventures
Charlotte

The Houston native started his real estate and technology
investment company in 2005 after working for nine years at the
Accenture consulting firm, where he advised clients on business
strategy, change management and business processes. A
Charlotte resident for 12 years, Collins has made real estate
investments in North Carolina, Maryland, Texas and Washington,
D.C. Collins developed Red Hill Capital as an “angel investor” fund
to support assets historically overlooked by other groups. In
particular, he looks for minority- and founder-led businesses, he
says. “Our typical investment shows promise and is
undercapitalized or undermanaged, and we come in with great
management and an operational focus on the long term. Ours is
patient money.”

A recent acquisition is The City Kitch, a shared commercial
kitchen operation that Collins refers to as a “WeWork” for food
entrepreneurs. The City Kitch has two locations in Charlotte and
another coming in Greensboro. “How we consume food will
change through technology, and our business model is well
positioned to play a large role in these shifts,” he says. Collins, 47,
has a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College and an MBA
from George Washington University.

WALTER DAVIS
Founding member, Peachtree Providence Partners
Charlotte

Davis’ inspiration to become a businessman came from his
grandfather, Leroy Davis, who owned a grocery store, service
station and cemetery, he told a Greenville, S.C., newspaper in
2011. After graduating from the University of South Carolina,
Davis worked in Charlotte for Bank of America’s real estate
syndicated lending unit and later Wachovia as an executive vice
president of retail credit and direct lending.

In 2011, he joined with three other veteran Black executives from
Wachovia and BofA to form a holding company and raise $500
million with a goal of building CertusBank into a $5 billion-asset,
Greenville-based institution within two or three years. A series of
rapid acquisitions, including taking over some institutions that
failed during the 2007-09 recession, helped CertusBank reach $2
billion. But steady losses prompted dissension with the bank’s
investors and Davis’ departure in 2014. CertusBank liquidated a
year later.

Davis, 56, then joined former CertusBank partners Milton Jones
and Angela Webb to build Peachtree Providence Partners, a
management-consulting and private-investment firm with offices
in Atlanta and Charlotte. Davis works with boards and
management teams to improve performance, gaining a particular
expertise in Opportunity Zone investments that target
economically distressed areas. A focus of the firm is helping build
minority businesses, which Davis says often requires a strong
commitment from CEOs of larger companies and government
purchasing officers.

SRI DONTHI
Executive vice president, chief technology officer, Advance Auto
Parts
Raleigh

Originally from Hyderabad, India, Donthi came to the Raleigh-
based retailer in 2018 to lead the organization through a major
business and technology transformation. He’s a member of the
company’s executive leadership committee and responsible for
Advance’s overall IT organization, technology platforms and
strategic initiatives. Prior to joining Advance, Donthi held several
leadership positions at PepsiCo during his nearly decadelong
tenure there, including chief information officer and senior vice
president of Frito-Lay North America. He holds a bachelor’s
degree in mathematics from India’s Osmania University, a
master’s degree in computer science from the Illinois Institute of
Technology, and an MBA from Northwestern University.

“CIO’s are in a unique position when it comes to helping
businesses unlock growth,” Donthi said at a recent National
Association of Software and Service Companies conference.
“There are enormous opportunities in cognitive computing,
leveraging [big] data, and learning from it.”

Since joining Advance, Donthi says, his team has modernized the
company’s legacy technology platform. “Technology is at the
helm of everything we do. … We are building engineering talent,
culture and bringing ‘tech’ into our technology organization. Over
the last few years, we’ve seen customers increasingly shift to e-
commerce for purchases, a trend that has accelerated since the
COVID-19 pandemic began and one I think will continue in the
longer term. As a result, we have continued to invest in and
prioritize new digital capabilities to benefit our customers.”

DEREK ELLINGTON
Triad market president, mid-South business banking executive,
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Greensboro

Ellington was the voice of experience when he recently described
his bank’s million-dollar pledge to N.C. A&T State University as a
step toward “dynamic careers.” He’s had one.

Not long after, other A&T alumni again popped up in prominent
national roles, including Michael Regan, nominated by President
Joe Biden to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and
Ebony Thomas, who was named late last year to head BofA’s racial
equality and economic opportunity initiatives.

Ellington, 50, has risen to a prominent role in a region that
encompasses Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem, with
more than 1,600 BofA employees. He has inserted himself deeply
in civic affairs in a career that is both dynamic and built on solid
ground.

He earned degrees in computer science and business
administration from Alabama’s Troy University in 1992 and a
master’s in international business from Birmingham-Southern
College. He later completed the North Carolina Bankers
Association three-year banking school at UNC Chapel Hill and
graduated from Leadership North Carolina.

His community involvement has also been hands-on. Ellington is
secretary-treasurer of East Greensboro Now, the city’s effort to
improve economic opportunity, housing and other aspects of life
in one of its stressed communities. He is a former chair of the
Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and Guilford County
Economic Development Alliance. He’s married with four children.

His supervisors have recognized Ellington’s efforts, awarding him
the 2017 Bank of America Global Diversity and Inclusion Award.

MARVIN ELLISON
CEO, Lowe’s
Mooresville

The first Black person to be CEO of two Fortune 500 companies,
the Brownsville, Tenn., native is enjoying terrific success at the
giant home-improvement retailer. Lowe’s shares have increased
more than 60% since he became CEO in July 2018 and had a mid-
January market valuation of $120 billion.

Born to sharecroppers, Ellison, 55, held convenience store and
janitorial jobs while paying his tuition at the University of
Memphis. He then spent 15 years at Target, working up to a
corporate job before moving to Home Depot for 14 years. His last
post was as executive vice president of U.S. stores. He left the
Atlanta-based company after he wasn’t chosen as CEO and took
the top post at J.C. Penney in August 2015. He had little success
reviving the troubled department-store chain before he was
named Lowe’s top executive.

In his first two years in North Carolina, Ellison boosted the
number of Black employees with titles of vice president or higher
from eight to 15. He also has invested heavily in improving the
company’s digital offerings. With more consumers opting to avoid
stores because of the pandemic, Lowe’s online sales have more
than doubled in the first three quarters of the 2021 fiscal year.

One of four Black CEOs on the Fortune 500 list of largest U.S.
companies as of late 2020, Ellison has consistently urged other
corporate leaders to fight racism. “I didn’t have to see the horrific
murder of George Floyd to understand that there was racial
injustice in America,” he said at a conference last year. “I live it
every day.”

FRANK EMORY JR.
Executive vice president, chief legal officer, Novant Health
Charlotte

Emory is an example of leadership emerging from adversity. He
grew up in Wilson in the 1960s when the tobacco town was
foundering as real estate, banking and job opportunities slipped
away. Decades later, he has left a major imprint on the state’s
public and private affairs.

After a lengthy legal career at large Charlotte law firms, Emory
joined Winston-Salem-based Novant Health in early 2019. CEO
Carl Armato said he hired Emory because “he has more than 30
years in practice, with extensive experience in the financial
services industry, as well as publicly traded and privately held
companies.”

Now, Emory oversees Novant’s risk management, legal affairs and
government relations at the fast-growing hospital system, which
posted $5.4 billion in revenue in 2019.

Emory is also a civic leader, having been appointed board
chairman of the Economic Development Partnership of North
Carolina, the state’s primary economic-recruiting agency, in 2017.

Before moving to Novant, he was managing partner of the
Charlotte office of Hunton Andrews Kurth and is a past president
of the Mecklenburg County Bar. He spent eight years on the N.C.
Board of Transportation and has been chosen a top lawyer by
several publications, including Business North Carolina.

Emory is a 1979 graduate of Duke University, majoring in public
policy and economics as an Angier B. Duke Scholar — that’s the
school’s top academic scholarship. He later earned a law degree
at UNC Chapel Hill. On the personal front, he’s married and has
two sons and in 2001 received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine,
the state’s highest civic honor.

GEOFF FOSTER
CEO, owner, Core Technology Molding
Greensboro

Connections literally explain how the N.C. A&T State University
graduate has copped awards for entrepreneurship while building
a 30-employee plastics company into a burgeoning supplier for
automotive, pharmaceutical, medical and other industries.

Foster’s injection-molded electrical connector, for which he and
his former employer share a patent, has been used in more than
31 million vehicles built by Ford Motor. “They owned all the
rights,” he says, which convinced him that he should create his
own company. It wasn’t easy.

Five frustrating years lapsed after he got the Ford connector
patent, but his commitment to founding his own business
remained solid. “I didn’t want to go to my family and friends to
borrow, so we used what money my wife and I saved up and tried
to get a loan,” he says. “It was tough. It was always like, ‘How
many customers do you have?’ and the answer was that we were
a startup. Then crickets.”

Originally from Freehold, N.J., Foster came to Greensboro to
attend N.C. A&T. He married Greensboro native and nursing
student Tonya Oliver, which anchored him in North Carolina.
They have a daughter, a Clemson University graduate and high
school teacher in Charleston, S.C., and son at A&T who has a
baseball scholarship.

Between receiving his first patent in 1999 and starting Core
Technology in 2006, Foster was an operations manager at Becton
Dickinson’s Durham manufacturing plant. “That’s how I learned
clean-room, medical-sterile technology.” He also earned a Wake
Forest University MBA.

Foster’s business has grown to include clients in 150 countries
such as BMW USA Manufacturing Group and its 11,000-employee
plant in Greer, S.C. “We’re making parts — connectors — for every
X3 and X4 in the world,” he says, citing BMW’s biggest-selling SUV
models. Other high-profile clients are Hewlett-Packard and
Merck & Co., for whom Core makes millions of plastic plungers
for syringes. It’s the kind of product Foster hopes to cash in on as
drugmakers produce coronavirus vaccines.

Already, Core Technology is working multiple shifts in its 30,000-
square-foot new plant, an anchor tenant at the Gateway Research
Park joint venture of UNC Greensboro and N.C. A&T. “We’re
working around the clock and worked 350 days last year,” he says.

Foster was named Launch Greensboro’s entrepreneur of the year
for 2019, has twice been chosen as minority supplier of the year
by the Carolinas-Virginia Minority Supplier Development Council
and recently was chosen as Southeast Entrepreneur of the Year
by Ernst & Young, which cited the company’s ability to “pivot
quickly during COVID-19.”

MICHIMASA FUJINO
President, Honda Aircraft
Greensboro

It’s not the biggest employer — nearby repair and maintenance
operator Haeco Americas has 2,100 people — but Honda Aircraft
isn’t far behind with 1,500, and few will dispute it puts the
glamour in the Triad’s bustling aviation industry. It was Fujino, 60,
whose original pencil sketches for his HondaJet have turned into
a remarkable success for the Japanese company.

Fujino may be best remembered by his high school classmates for
his pingpong skills. But he gave up a potential pro career and
graduated from the University of Tokyo with an aeronautical
engineering degree in 1984. He soon landed a post as chief
engineer and then project manager for HondaJet a few years
later.

Already, he was playing with the idea for a fast, relatively
inexpensive light business jet in the back of his mind. One day, he
says, in a fit of inspiration, he tore the back off a calendar and
began sketching. What emerged was a sports car of the air with
its twin engines mounted on stalks above the wings that looked
essentially like today’s $4 million-plus, 450-mph HondaJet.

Honda already had a small-engine plant in nearby Alamance
County, so Fujino steered the fledgling Honda Aircraft to nearby
Piedmont Triad International Airport when corporate
headquarters authorized commercial production of the jet in
2004.

Today, more than 150 jets have rolled off the assembly line, and
Fujino has rolled up numerous awards, including the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Aircraft Design Award.
(He was the first designer of Asian descent to get it.) The plane
has won such honors as the Foundation Award for Excellence
from the same organization.

Fujino hasn’t forgotten his past, however. In the conference room
of his Greensboro office, when staff meetings are held, members
meet around a pingpong table.

KIMBERLY BULLOCK GATLING
Partner, chief diversity and inclusion officer, Fox Rothschild
Greensboro

Gatling is a household name in Triad legal and civic affairs. She’s
been recognized with several esteemed titles such as the Citizen
Lawyer Award by the North Carolina Bar Association,
Outstanding Woman of the Profession Award by the Women’s
Law Association at Elon Law School, and the Distinguished
Advocate Award by the Guilford County Association of Black
Lawyers. She is a member of Business North Carolina’s Legal Elite
for intellectual property law. She grew up in Hampton, Va., then
earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at N.C. A&T
State University, where her father was a graduate. She later
earned a law degree from George Washington University and
joined Greensboro-based Smith Moore Leatherwood in 2001 after
working for two years at another firm. Smith Moore combined
with the 950-attorney Fox Rothschild firm in 2018.

Outside the courtroom, Gatling, 46, serves as chair of the board
of the United Way of Greater Greensboro and vice chair of the
Cone Health Foundation board. She also serves as a trustee for
N.C. A&T, where she formerly chaired the board of visitors. She
also taught public law and leadership at Elon University Law
School as an adjunct professor from 2014-16.

ROBERT HARRINGTON
Partner, Robinson Bradshaw
Charlotte

Having chaired his firm’s litigation department since 2015, the
Florence, S.C., native spends most of his time representing clients
on various complex disputes. He joined Robinson Bradshaw in
1999 after earning undergraduate and law degrees from Duke
University and working for a large New Orleans law firm.
Harrington, 58, is on the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion and
Recruiting committees.

He’s developed a specialty in representing consumer-finance
companies and earned many industry kudos, including N.C.
Lawyer of the Year from the N.C. Lawyers Weekly publication.
He’s also active in civic affairs, formerly chairing the Charlotte
Arts & Science Council, Mecklenburg County Bar (he was the fifth
Black president in the bar’s history) and the county’s public
library board. For many years, he’s been a board member of the
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a national
nonprofit organization that has recently focused on promoting
equal opportunity voting.

KODWO GHARTEY-TAGOE

Chief legal officer, executive vice president, Duke Energy
Charlotte

The first case that Ghartey-Tagoe was assigned in 1988 after
leaving Duke University Law School was assisting a group of
North Carolina cities in suing Carolina Power & Light over cost
overruns at its Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant in Wake
County.

More than 30 years later, Ghartey-Tagoe, 57, is chief legal officer
at CP&L’s successor company, Duke Energy, ranking among the
most powerful executives at the giant utility. No one holds a
grudge, he says with a laugh.

He became the Charlotte-based company’s top lawyer in October
2019, having joined the company in 2002 as chief regulatory
counsel. At that time, Duke was investing heavily in less-
regulated energy businesses that appeared to have more
potential than the traditional utility business. After the collapse
of energy-trading powerhouse Enron showed the risks of
deregulated energy investments and a series of leadership and
industry changes, Duke has shifted over the years back to a
concentration on its regulated businesses that keep the lights on
in six states.

Ghartey-Tagoe has kept it interesting by shifting to the litigation
department, returning to his original focus as vice president for
state regulatory and legal affairs, then serving as South Carolina
state president for nearly three years before taking his current
post. Running Duke’s business in the Palmetto State was probably
his most fun job, he says, because he got to see how so many
people and businesses were affected by the utility’s work.

“It’s been the honor of my life to be part of all that Duke has done
since I got here,” he says. “We have a mission that I truly believe
in.”

Assuring reliable electricity is more than a slogan for Ghartey-
Tagoe, who grew up in Ghana. His mother lives in a small city in
the African country where outages remain a constant problem.
Ghana has 4,400 megawatts of energy capacity serving 28 million
people. By comparison, Duke Energy owns 33,000 megawatts of
energy capacity in the Carolinas, serving 8.6 million people.

Among his current challenges is working to change North
Carolina’s utility regulatory approach, which tends to be more
restrictive than in other states in allowing Duke to recover costs
from new capital investments that promise environmental
benefits. A wide-ranging group of private and public officials are
holding talks about the issue.

“We get criticized for not moving fast enough, and we get
criticized for our rates being too high,” he says. “The regulatory
construction in the Carolinas needs some modernization.”

The son of a journalist, Ghartey-Tagoe earned a bachelor’s degree
at Canada’s McGill University before moving to North Carolina to
attend Duke. He worked on utility regulatory issues for law firms
in Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va., before joining Duke. He
and his wife, Phyllis, have three grown daughters who are
graduates of Davidson College, Rice University and Vanderbilt
University.

For many years, Duke has challenged its outside law firms to add
more diversity to their ranks, Ghartey-Tagoe says. The utility
grades firms on various metrics and has reduced assignments or
dropped firms entirely for not meeting its standards.

“I firmly believe a diverse group of people will come up with a
better solution than a nondiverse group. It’s a matter of using all
the resources and talent available to come up with the best
solutions.”

NASSER HASSAN
CEO, Breakthrough BioAssets; COO, Atsena Therapeutics
Raleigh

Hassan is the founder and CEO of Raleigh-based life science and
health IT firm Breakthrough BioAssets. The company licenses and
develops science and technology assets, and its holdings include
Raleigh startup InnovaAi and Cary-based PharmaBio.

Hassan also is chief operating officer for Durham-based Atsena
Therapeutics, a clinical-stage gene-therapy startup focused on
reversing or preventing blindness. In December 2020, the
company raised $55 million for clinical trials related to a therapy
for a leading cause of blindness in children. The investment led by
Sofinnova Investments will also fund a manufacturing unit and
expand research for other therapies, trials and technology.

Hassan brings more than 30 years of experience to his current
roles, including past jobs as global head of regulatory operations
at Merck KGaA, senior director of regulatory affairs at
AstraZeneca, and chief operating officer at Pfizer subsidiary
Bamboo Therapeutics. He also held senior roles at VIRxSYS,
Gilead and GSK. In 2008, Hassan founded RegSource Consulting,
focusing on biopharmaceuticals, medical devices and generic
industries.

Hassan is also the executive director of the Foundation for
Commercializing Innovation, which partners with companies,
nonprofit organizations and governments on global health
innovation and policy initiatives.

TERRENCE AND TORRY HOLT
Co-founders, Holt Brothers Construction
Raleigh

The brothers, who grew up in Gibsonville, have followed up their
football success with a growing construction business. Torry, 44,
who played football for N.C. State University and the NFL’s St.
Louis Rams, Jacksonville Jaguars and New England Patriots,
founded Raleigh-based Holt Brothers Construction with his
brother Terrence, 40. Terrence, another N.C. State alumni, played
for the Arizona Cardinals, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears and
New Orleans Saints. Torry serves as vice president, while
Terrence is president. Holt Brothers, which has 26 employees,
has grown significantly over the last decade. Recent projects
include the $65 million City of Raleigh Central Communications
Center and the $58 million Raleigh Union Station.

The Holt brothers’ mother, O jetta Holt-Shoffner, battled cancer
for 10 years before passing away in 1996, inspiring the pair to
start the nonprofit Holt Brothers Foundation, which supports
children who have a parent with cancer. Holt Brothers
Construction has also made significant donations to several local
organizations such as Boys & Girls Club of Durham and Orange
Counties, Communities in Schools of North Carolina, Meredith
Autism Program, Eastern Guilford High School, Gibsonville
Elementary School, and Gibsonville Parks & Recreation. Torry is a
finalist in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2021, which will
be named on Feb. 6.

TIMOTHY HUMPHREY

Vice president, IBM Chief Data Office; senior state executive, IBM
in N.C.; senior location executive, IBM Research Triangle Park
Durham

The Fayetteville native’s first round at IBM started in 1995 while
he was an electrical engineering student at N.C. State University.
He initially worked as a technical support professional, then
gained product engineering and software-development manager
roles. In 2005, Humphrey joined Lenovo following its acquisition
of IBM’s personal computing division. There, he managed
software development and battery technology teams.

Humphrey, 47, rejoined IBM in 2011, managing strategy for the
integrated supply chain team, then holding executive vice
president positions focused on analytics for IBM’s enterprise
services and chief data offices. In 2018, he became vice president
of IBM’s Chief Data Office, where he leads more than 100
professionals worldwide to build IBM’s data and artificial
intelligence backbone. The team also works on the Cognitive
Enterprise Data Platform, which provides real-time insights on
the company’s applications for more than 100,000 IBM analysts,
data scientists and others.

As senior state and site executive for IBM’s North Carolina and
RTP operations, Humphrey develops executive relationships with
state and local governments, businesses, nonprofit organizations
and academic institutions. The company’s RTP site is IBM’s
biggest North American employee base. Last year, the company
named him its Senior Location Executive of the year, while the
NC Tech Association also gave him its Tech Executive of the Year
honor.

During the pandemic, Humphrey chaired IBM’s local crisis-
management team response and employee-safety initiatives and
led an expanded amenities program — including providing free
snacks and beverages in the workplace. The result was a solid
improvement in employee engagement.

This year, Humphrey and a team of IBM employees worked on an
automated alert service that assesses supply chain risks and
identifies threats in about 25,000 supply chain data centers and
IBM sites worldwide. Though developed for internal use, the
project has expanded to nonprofit organizations including Save
the Children and North Carolina’s Day One Disaster Relief.

As a member of IBM’s Black Executive Council, Humphrey leads a
corporate-wide initiative to eliminate culturally offensive or
discriminatory terminology in the company’s learning, videos and
documentation guides. Humphrey has hosted discussions on
social justice and racial issues in America. “As an engineer at
heart, I tend to look at it all from a scientific perspective: We
need to consider the root cause of the problem, develop and
apply hypotheses, and measure results,” Humphrey said.
“Combining that way of working with a collaboration between
business and government, we can help bring real, actionable
change.”

Humphrey is a member of N.C. State’s Electrical and Computer
Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame.

CORNELIUS “CC” LAMBERTH
CEO, C2 Contractors
Greensboro

Computers are the brains, but Lamberth’s cabling company,
Greensboro-based C2 Contractors, creates the nervous systems
without which they’re high-tech paperweights. Electronics and
computer technology were his passions when he graduated from
N.C. A&T State University in 1989, but he quickly found room for
another.

CC Lamberth has crusaded for minority business and industry for
a quarter of a century. He helped create and has headed N.C.
A&T’s advisory board of visitors, and he’s a member of Gov. Roy
Cooper’s Advisory Council on Historically Underutilized
Businesses.

His company, which includes a general contracting branch, is
certified as an historically underutilized business with the state
of North Carolina and as a minority business enterprise by
Greensboro. It also holds small-business and disadvantaged-
business enterprise certifications with the N.C. Department of
Transportation.

Such certifications underscore the leg-up status minority
businesses often need, he told a Greensboro conference last year,
because they face difficulty getting financing and are sometimes
stymied by local governments. They often must overcome the
tendency of potential clients to do business with contractors like
themselves – often non-minority.
“The system itself is not set up to do business with Black people,”
Lamberth told Triangle Business Journal.

Lamberth has served as an executive-board member of the
Greensboro Chamber and chairman of the local NAACP’s
economic development committee.

It’s been 25 years since Lamberth founded CoMor Corp., the
forerunner of today’s C2 Contractors, he says. With a history of
such clients as Hewlett-Packard, he says, his company holds itself
accountable for the “quality of our work and the results we
achieve.”

KAREN LEVERT
Venture partner, Pappas Capital
Durham

LeVert is a longtime leader in the Triangle’s startup scene. In
early 2020, she joined Durham-based Pappas Capital, an
investment firm focused on life-sciences companies spanning
biotech, biopharma, drug delivery, medical devices and other
technologies. The firm formed in 1994 by Managing Partner Art
Pappas wanted LeVert to expand its specialized fund
management business.

LeVert brought lots of business experience to Pappas. In 2003,
she co-founded Southeast TechInventures, an innovation lab
focused on bringing university-developed technologies to
market.

LeVert started the organization with Kristina Johnson, the former
dean of Duke University’s School of Engineering who is president
of Ohio State University. Southeast TechInventures has several
portfolio companies, including development-stage protein
therapy firm Lindy Biosciences, along with a few exits, such as
Advanced Liquid Logic, sold to Illumina in 2013.

LeVert came to North Carolina during a 15-year career at
Nationwide Insurance, where she started as a computer
programmer. She worked through a variety of posts, including
leading a 500-employee service center in Raleigh. She later
bought the franchise rights to a bioremediation firm, which she
sold in 2001. She then joined San Francisco-based startup Level
Edge, a recruiting service for high school athletes that raised $10
million during the late ’90s tech boom but later fizzled. She also
ran a business development consultancy before starting
Southeast TechInventures, where she remains president.

In 2014, LeVert launched Ag TechInventures, which focuses on
commercializing research and technology in the agbiotech,
infotech and precision agriculture markets. The company
consults industry partners on promising candidates for spinoffs
and assists with raising funding. Its spinoffs include Biotality,
which develops sustainable crop protection products, and Edison
Agrosciences, focused on alternative rubber crops.

An Ohio native with a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Michigan
University and an MBA from the University of Dayton, LeVert is
also a board member for the N.C. Biotechnology Center, the
Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, the N.C.
School of Science and Math, and the NC IDEA Foundation.

KENNETH LEWIS
Member, attorney, Nexsen Pruet
Raleigh

Lewis, 59, has been a trailblazer in the North Carolina legal
community. After earning a bachelor’s at Duke University and
graduating from Harvard Law School, he worked as a law clerk for
Associate Justice Henry E. Frye of the N.C. Supreme Court. He
was hired in 1987 as the first Black lawyer at Charlotte’s Moore &
Van Allen, the state’s largest law firm. He later co-founded his
own firm and worked for another big N.C. firm before joining
Nexsen Pruet in 2014. The firm has more than 180 attorneys at
eight offices in the Carolinas. Lewis has worked with companies
in various industries such as financial services, health care,
insurance, manufacturing and technology.

Highlighting women and people of color in his profession is a
priority for Lewis, who made an unsuccessful bid for the
Democratic Party nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010. “[I am]
assuring that highly skilled diverse and female attorneys receive
their fair share of opportunities to display their brilliance and
value-add in serving clients,” he says, “and contributing their
perspective and experience to complex problem-solving.”

In a December Triangle Business Journal column, Lewis urged
N.C. businesses and citizens to do an “economic apartheid audit”
to assess whether they are using Black professionals or
supporting Black-owned businesses. “How can Black people
achieve significant economic progress if those with 10 times their
wealth fail to do business with them?” Lewis wrote.

JAMES LI
Founder, CEO, Cellex
Research Triangle Park

With decades of experience in medical-diagnostic technology
development, Li, 59, was quick to jump into action at the onset of
the coronavirus pandemic. His Research Triangle Park-based
company, Cellex, developed a rapid test to detect the presence of
antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the strain of coronavirus that
causes COVID-19. Cellex’s antibody test was the first of its kind to
secure an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug
Administration.

Li, who earned a Ph.D. in genetics and cell biology from
Washington State University, founded Cellex in 2002 to develop
instruments and assays for point-of-care diagnostics. Eighteen
years later, the company has developed rapid tests for influenza
detection and other major viruses and blood tests. The company
has partnered with California-based medtech firm Gauss to
launch a COVID-19 rapid antigen test.

In 2009, Li co-founded Avioq, a Research Triangle Park-based
diagnostic-device manufacturer and contract organization that
markets virus diagnostic assays. In 2016, the company was
acquired by China-based Oriental Ocean Sci-tech for $65 million.

Prior to Cellex and Avioq, Li worked for the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration as a regulatory scientist for the Center for
Biologics Evaluation and Research.

GINA LOFTEN
Chief technology officer, Microsoft Corporation US
Raleigh

A star alumnus of Greensboro’s N.C. A&T State University, Loften
has spent her career at two tech powerhouses. After about 27
years at IBM, she moved to rival Microsoft in September 2019 as
chief technology officer for the company’s U.S. Enterprise
Services unit. In her current post, which she assumed last July,
her work includes operating 15 Microsoft Technology Centers in
the U.S. that help customers envision how to deploy the
company’s products and services, she told a Colorado technology
group last year. Her team “helps customers reimagine their
business and achieve successful outcomes and delivers on the
promise of digital transformation across their enterprise,”
according to a company bio. Loften’s many posts at IBM included
leading global initiatives for its Watson artificial intelligence and
natural learning program and helping small and large businesses,
universities, and others develop apps on the system. She also was
chief technology officer for IBM’s North American Consulting
Services and Hybrid Cloud.

An electrical engineering graduate of N.C. A&T, she has served on
the boards of the George Mason Research Foundation, N.C.
Museum of Life and Science and Rise Against Hunger. She has
written articles on how artificial intelligence can improve the
mental health of veterans and the true value of data for
government use. Loften has described herself as a “passionate
diversity and inclusion leader.”

VALECIA MCDOWELL

Management committee member, Moore & Van Allen
Charlotte

When she joined in 1998, McDowell was the only Black female
lawyer at the largest law firm based in the city. She’s made a big
mark earning key leadership roles at the firm and in the
community. McDowell, 47, heads the firm’s White Collar,
Regulatory Defense and Investigations practice.

Her assignments include leading a team of 80 people to provide
risk analysis for a big bank, representing companies affiliated
with convicted Durham insurance company owner Greg Lindberg
and overseeing the sexual harassment investigation of a Charlotte
City Council member. She’s also a founding member of Moore &
Van Allen’s diversity committee.

With bachelor’s and law degrees from Duke University, McDowell
is also a key civic leader, chairing the board of the Charlotte Arts
and Science Council and previously serving as general counsel for
the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance. She’s a trustee of the
Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Foundation Board and is on
the Charlotte Center City 2040 Vision Plan Steering Committee.
She earned the Julius L. Chambers Diversity Champion Award in
2017 from the Mecklenburg County Bar and was also recognized
on the Lawyers of Color “Nation’s Best” list in 2019.

“Yes, we want to create environments where everyone feels
included,” McDowell said in a Business North Carolina report last
year. “And yes, we want to create environments that mirror the
overall population. But the actual outcomes of the work will be so
much better if you have people who are bringing those different
lived experiences to the table. To me, that’s really what matters
for our business model beyond the fact that it’s just plain the
right thing to do.”

TINO MCFARLAND
CEO, president, McFarland Construction
Charlotte

The Indiana native launched the Charlotte-based construction
firm in 2010 with his wife, Tamara. Ten years later, 45 employees
report to the Charlotte office and McFarland, 45, holds an
unlimited general contractor’s license in seven states.

The company has offices in Fayetteville and Virginia Beach with
clients including Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties, Central
Piedmont Community College, UNC Charlotte and Virginia Tech.
The company helped build Novant Health’s $166 million Heart &
Vascular Institute, a seven-story building on the system’s main
Charlotte campus.

Through his role as a business owner, he wants to remove gaps in
inclusion and disparity. “Community, commitment and
collaboration drive everything we do at McFarland Construction,”
he says. “These three key considerations align our behaviors,
influence our business strategy and enhance how we show up in
the marketplace.”

McFarland graduated from Purdue University and earned an MBA
at Indiana University. He has participated in the Bank of America
Supplier Development Training, Bell Leadership Institute and
Leadership Charlotte and supports several organizations
including the Architecture Construction Engineering Mentor
Program and the National Black MBA Association. The McFarlands
have three children and are members of the local chapter of Jack
and Jill of America, a nonprofit organization assisting African
American children.

DAMIAN MILLS
Owner, Mills Automotive Group
Pineville

As a student at N.C. A&T State University in Greensboro in the
early 1990s, Mills went looking for summer work. Jobs selling cars
were plentiful, so he walked from dealer to dealer along
Wendover Avenue because he didn’t have his own vehicle. Finally,
Crown Dodge gave him a chance.

Mills was good at it. Good enough that his Mills Automotive
Group, with more than a dozen Ford, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler,
General Motors, Nissan and Hyundai dealerships, was chosen as
Black Enterprise magazine’s Auto Dealer of the Year last year. The
magazine says the Pineville-based chain is the nation’s fifth-
largest Black-owned auto dealership, with more than $470 million
in sales at outlets in the Carolinas and other states.

The Louisiana native, 47, came to North Carolina to attend A&T,
where he majored in business economics and graduated in 1995.
He says he had a knack for sales, but Crown Automotive Group
figured his talents lay elsewhere. He was quickly promoted to
finance and insurance manager and, in 1998 at age 25, he became
a partner in Crown Dodge. Two years later, after Greensboro
businessman Royce Reynolds sold a majority stake in Crown
Automotive to Duluth, Ga.-based Asbury Automotive, Mills
became sales director for 22 dealerships.

His climb to the top ranks of U.S. minority dealership owners
began in 2004 when he bought a Ford dealership in Smithfield.
Mills Automotive has grown steadily since with its brands
including Chrysler, Jeep, Ram, Ford, Lincoln, Kia and Chevrolet,
among others. Mills is a former president of the Chrysler
Minority Dealers Association.

Mills was appointed last year to the board of visitors at High
Point University, where two of his three children are graduates.
He has a reputation as a details manager but also a risk-taker who
continued expanding during the 2008 recession. One of his
employees says he breaks the mold of a CEO of a business pulling
in a half-billion dollars in sales a year. Stuffy? “That’s not him,” he
says.

PAM OLIVER
Executive vice president, Novant Health
Winston-Salem

The Rocky Mount native learned a lot while spending summers
on her grandfather’s farm, but mostly that she didn’t intend to
wind up on the business end of a hoe in steamy tobacco and
cucumber fields. Instead, she cultivated educational and health
care credentials that led to being named president of Novant
Health’s 2,500-member physician network in 2019.

The not-for-profit enterprise has more than 30,000 employees
and 15 medical centers in the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia,
serving 4 million patients annually. It expects to complete its
purchase of New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington
this year, pushing its annual revenue to about $7 billion.

Oliver, 46, and her husband, Mark, have three children. She says
she grew up wanting to attend UNC Chapel Hill to study
medicine. After excelling in high school in Rocky Mount, she
received Morehead-Cain and Board of Governors scholarships. In
her junior year, family tragedy gave her even greater motivation:
Her father was diagnosed with fatal leukemia, and his care
reinforced her desire to go into medicine.

She graduated in 1996 with a biology degree, followed up in 2000
with a master’s in public health and a medical degree in 2001. She
completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Wake
Forest School of Medicine. That work and her own parenting has
been essential training, she says, providing perspective on down-
to-earth basics such as breastfeeding and the difficulty in
obtaining child care.

She started her practice at Novant Health’s WomanCare in 2005
and has risen in the system’s leadership while maintaining a high
profile in community affairs. She’s chair of the Forsyth County
Infant Mortality Reduction Coalition and a member of the UNC
Chapel Hill board of visitors.

TONY PARHAM
Vice president of innovation and strategy, Fidelity Center for
Applied Technology
Durham

Since moving from Boston five years ago to join Fidelity’s big
Research Triangle Park operation, Parham has helped the
investment giant’s Center for Applied Technology take on
innovative projects and new business opportunities. The center
works with the Fidelity Labs incubator to study emerging
technologies and socioeconomic trends that can boost the
company’s growth and improve customer satisfaction. He also
has managed a program for employee patent filings.

Earlier in his career, Parham worked for Crosstech Ventures, IBM
and Lotus Development. Before joining Fidelity, Parham worked
for three-and-a-half years as Massachusetts’ first government
innovation officer after being hired by former Gov. Deval Patrick.
A key project included improving the data warehouse for the
state’s health and human services offices with a $1 million
investment yielding a $9.8 million return in the first year and $7
million annually thereafter, state officials have said. The broader
benefit was infusing new thinking and attracting talented staffers
to state government, he says.

Parham has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a
master’s in management from MIT, along with a master’s in
computer science from the University of Southern California. He
is a board member at the Council for Entrepreneurial
Development and William Peace University. His wife, Lynda
Morris Parham, is a psychologist who operates a private practice.

CRAIG PARKIN

Senior managing director, Atlantic South Regional GM | Institutional
Relationships, TIAA
Charlotte

The Long Island native started at Teachers Insurance and Annuity
Association of America in 2004, ranking among the top leaders at
the New York-based company’s big Charlotte operation. Parkin,
48, served on TIAA’s Charlotte Leadership Council and is the
executive sponsor of the Empowered (African American &
Caribbean) employee resource group. He’s taken an active role in
the company’s “Be the Change’’ initiative, a corporate-wide effort
to combat racism and boost appreciation of different cultures.
While organizations can always do better, Parkin said in a local
news interview last fall, employees’ reactions shows him that
TIAA is on the right path. “Hearing reactions from employees
saying, ‘I thought I knew but I really had no idea,’ or ‘I thought I
was supportive of people of color or I wasn’t racist, but I can be
anti-racist,’ [was powerful].”

Prior to joining TIAA, Parkin spent seven years with Bank of
America. He has a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and
an MBA from Queens University. Parkin serves on the board of
advisers at the Belk College of Business at UNC Charlotte.

DHRUV PATEL

Senior vice president of technology, Signature Bank’s Venture
Banking Group
Durham

In March 2019, New York-based Signature Bank launched a
Venture Banking Group to serve venture capital firms and their
portfolio companies. Patel was one of several executives who left
Durham-based Square 1 Bank to join Signature’s new venture
unit.

From 2016 to 2019, Patel was a vice president leading Square 1
Bank’s technology banking team. The company was acquired by
California-based Pacific West Bank in 2015 for $849 million,
creating an entity with more than $21 billion in assets. The Square
1 brand was dropped in 2019 and transitioned into a new venture
banking group.

Patel focuses on new relationship development with startups and
investors throughout the Southeast. In November 2020, the
Venture Banking Group signed its 100th client, exceeding
expectations for the first 18 months of operation.