P-TECH Principal Rashid Ferrod Davis

As politicians, scholars and activists debate the state of the nation’s education system there are initiatives being designed and implemented to develop the skills of students to compete within a competitive workforce. On September 8, 2011 the Department of Education, the City University of New York (CUNY) and IBM partnered to open, P-TECH an innovative New York City high school where students are educated an additional two years from grade 9 through 14. In addition to learning traditional core subjects, pupils receive education in the fields of STEM (Science, technology engineering and mathematics), a high school diploma and an Associate’s degree in Applied Science (AAS) in Computer Systems Technology or Electromechanical Engineering Technology.

With IBM underwriting the program, students are given priority for select entry-level positions with the company. P-TECH opened with 104 first year students and will add an estimated 100 students per year, with a total projected enrollment of 400-450 students by 2014. Entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing the success of the school is founding principal, Rashid Ferrod Davis, an education veteran with over 15 years of experience as a teacher, assistant principal and, most recently, the principal of the highly celebrated, Bronx Engineering and Technology Academy (BETA). BlackEnterprise.com spoke with Davis recently to address the academic and socioeconomic challenges of students, promoting entrepreneurship, and his plans for P-TECH.

For the most part corporate philanthropy has focused on distributing money and resources without any real hands-on involvement in schools and organizations. How does this project differ from such common practices?

Davis: This is different because it’s not just about writing a check. They are saying these are the skills we know entry-level workers have and these are the skills workers come with that have three years of work experience. So we’re looking at how we scaffold those skills downward as early as high school. By the end of the six-year model students then develop those soft skills that are missing when students leave college.

What elements of the workplace learning curriculum have been incorporated to ensure that these soft skills are developed?

There are four classes, which include English, math, technology, and workplace learning is its own course. In it there is project-based learning focused around team building, power point usage, coming up with project management solutions. So they understand how to work as a team, develop plans and carry out those plans.

A large majority of your students are expected to come from low-income backgrounds. Along with that will be certain barriers; what is in place to address personal life challenges that students may have?

For 104 students we have two guidance counselors and a talent search coordinator from Brooklyn College to expose them to college and prepare families for the college readiness process. It’s about how do we help families understand financial literacy to prepare for college, college trips and studying for high stakes examinations.

The school is unscreened, which has its potential pros and cons. On one hand it levels out the playing field but on the other hand there are some concerned that without screening you may be setting some students up for failure if they don’t have the solid background needed to pursue this level of advanced work. What is your response to that?

We know that the demand for information technology is outpacing the supply. We want to get underrepresented students and populations to go into science, technology, engineering or math industries. It’s important not to focus only on top tier students. We have to work with those who need strengthening so that they have a shot at middle-income lifestyles via these industries. We did research before executing to make sure we are doing best practices to build literacy and numeracy for them to complete a two-year and four-year degree in a STEM field.

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What support systems are in place for those students who may struggle academically in the program?

First and foremost is hiring the right staff with the core component of dealing with struggling learners. When hiring I made sure that each teacher had the patience, will and desire to allow students to work at it to get confidence that they learned it. Also, we reduced the adult to student ratio. No teachers deal with more than 65 students in any given day. Teachers and other adults get the opportunity to know the students so that helping students build confidence is accelerated.

Teachers can feel overwhelmed and underappreciated with the stresses involved in education and being underpaid. How do you help motivate them through professional development?

The teachers have the opportunity to work with college professors and hear firsthand the expectations to prepare the students academically. CUNY supports them so that they learn pedagogical practices to differentiate lessons and strengthen their content practices. IBM provides them with their own mentors and a liaison on-site to reinforce the workplace-learning curriculum. So it’s a multi-tier approach for the teachers.

The school helps prepare young people for entry-level work with IBM and other companies, but do you also help promote an entrepreneurial spirit within students?

In workplace learning they also have a unit on entrepreneurship. We already have students designing their own video games and gadgets with the opportunity to learn how to go into business at some point for themselves. Through workplace learning they have the opportunity for internships as well as externships via job shadowing. That way they are constantly seeing from multiple perspectives the ins and outs of different companies.

This is a very high stakes project with many stakeholders. So how is success being measured for the students, teachers and yourself?

We are a six-year model with multiple ways to look at success. We’re in the second month but our year-to-date attendance is 97.1 percent. That percentage is impressive since we were not able to screen for attendance. At the end of the year we will look to see who is promoted from grade 9 to 10 and passing Regents exams with no remediation. We will look at the observation process to make sure teachers are getting the support they need to grow in their field. For me I have a performance review that I am rated on each year that deals with my goal setting.

There haven’t been many African American media outlets to feature this story. Most of the outlets covering the school have been mainstream. Why do you think this is the case?

When it comes to people of color we hear on the opposite ends that we are the ones where the gaps need to be closed. But we don’t hear enough about how early college initiatives have been underway for years to make sure that underrepresented students have the opportunity to advance. I think if it’s not coming from the federal level then it is not glamorized the same way as an entertainment issue. Until we have a reality show about education it won’t be on the forefront of people’s agenda.

Earl G. Graves, Sr with IBM's Rodney C. Adkins (Image: Corey Shelton/EconoPix, Inc.)

Rodney C. Adkins, IBM’s Senior Vice President, Systems and Technology Group, has received the highest honor BLACK ENTERPRISE bestows upon a top-ranked exec: 2011 Corporate Executive of the Year. One of the nation’s most powerful business leaders in the tech sector, Adkins manages a 50,000-employee division that generates $18 billion in revenues and serves global clients in automotive, telecommunications, healthcare and manufacturing.

He was presented the award by BLACK ENTERPRISE Chairman and Publisher Earl G. Graves, Sr. at the National Network of Black IBM Retirees and Alumni conference, a business development and leadership event that brought more than 200 to Atlanta this past weekend.  “He’s a born competitor…a driven, visionary leader…and an extraordinary manager of talent and resources,” Graves said of Adkins’ attributes. “Moreover, this year’s honoree—and the company he represents—stands at the vanguard of 21^st century corporate leadership, constantly resetting the bar for diversity and fairness in the workplace.”  Celebrating its centennial anniversary this year, IBM has been listed among the BLACK ENTERPRISE 40 Best Companies for Diversity since the roster’s inception in 2005.

In gaining such recognition, Adkins, 53, is in good company. Past recipients include American Express Chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault, Aetna Chairman and CEO Ron Williams (retired), McDonald’s Corp. President and COO Don Thompson, Whirlpool International President Michael Todman, Amway Chief Global Marketing Officer Candace Matthews and Symantec CEO John W. Thompson, an IBM alum.

He’s deserving of the placement: His achievements and management prowess has placed him among the leading candidates to replace retiring IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano. Appointed to his position in 2009, the Miami native who holds a degree in physics from Rollins College and a master’s in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology oversees all aspects of IBM’s server, storage, systems software and retail store solutions business. The company’s integrated supply chain, which includes global manufacturing, procurement and customer fulfillment also reports to him. The 30-year veteran who is an engineer by training was also responsible for oversight of the servers for Watson, the computer that won the Jeopardy! competition against two champions earlier this year.

True to form, Adkins spent his acceptance saying that “he was humbled by the honor… and I thank the magazine helping me have a great professional and personal year” before giving the audience a presentation on the 130-year history of technology and Black achievement. Excited by technology entering “the learning era” and IBM’s Smarter Planet thrust, he foresees the computer power and analytical capabilities of Watson transforming healthcare, finance, transportation and media sectors, among others.

Beyond using technology to improve  quality of life and taking IBM to greater global influence and profitability,  Adkins, a board member of National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, promotes educational and mentorship programs to develop the next generation of African American engineers and scientists.  He told the audience: “We all have a responsibility to reach back and pull through.”

For more on Adkins, read the September 2011 issue of BLACK ENTERPRISE magazine currently on newsstands and view Executive Editor Caroline V. Clarke’s Power Player interview on the award-winning, nationally syndicated television show, Black Enterprise Business Report on Saturday, Oct. 8 and Sunday, Oct. 9 (check times and listings in your area).

Two of the challengers vying for the $1 million grand prize were Jeopardy! champs Brad Rutter, the game’s highest-grossing player with $3.3 million in winnings, and Ken Jennings, winner of the most consecutive matches in the show’s history. The third was a room-sized computer system named Watson—after IBM’s founder, Thomas J. Watson—that can rapidly process and analyze natural language including puns, riddles, or complex questions. Positioned between the two human players, Watson, who spoke in a synthesized, electronic voice, seemed the embodiment of IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative focused on using intelligence to drive innovation for global solutions.

When the challenge aired in February, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebrek sought responses from the contestants on topics such as literary characters, the Beatles, and Olympic oddities, with Watson receiving the clues via text file. The computer quickly emerged as the dominant player. By the first commercial break, Watson had answered 10 of 13 questions and amassed $5,200 while Rutter had won $1,000 and Jennings just $200. Watson would continue this drubbing over three matches and eventually take the $1 million pot (which was donated to charity). It was IBM’s first tech vs. human victory since Deep Blue checkmated chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997.

Watson is nothing short of a scientific wonder, an intelligent machine designed for answers and human interaction. What gives Watson its edge is the workload-optimized system design based on IBM DeepQA software and POWER7 processor-based servers allowing for custom algorithms and terabytes of storage. The speed of its circuitry outpaced human reaction times. The computer displayed the remarkable ability to parse keywords in a clue while searching for related terms as answers and proved impervious to players’ psychological tactics.

The real winner may turn out to be society. The exercise demonstrated computing power to the nth degree that can be used in medical diagnosis, business analysis, and other critical functions currently performed by knowledge-based workers.

It took a brilliant human mind, however, to manage the creation of Watson. So if Trebek one day says, “The answer is the man responsible for oversight of the development of servers for the computer that won Jeopardy! and changed the world,” the correct question will be “Who is Rodney Adkins?”

As senior vice president of IBM’s Systems and Technology Group, Adkins, 52, is quite a technological marvel himself. Appointed to the position in October 2009, he oversees all aspects of IBM’s semiconductor, server, storage, systems software, and retail store solutions businesses. The company’s integrated supply chain, which includes global manufacturing, procurement, and customer fulfillment, also report to him. His 50,000-employee division generates $18 billion in annual revenues. Moreover, Adkins serves as a member of the IBM Operating Team, responsible for day-to-day marketplace execution.

In reviewing the progress of STG for the first half of 2011, he said the unit’s growth was driven by “smarter computing,” the intelligent use of IT to make customers more efficient, cost-effective, and nimble. Serving global clients in automotive, banking, telecommunications, healthcare and manufacturing, he believes in the creation of system architecture that’s “tuned for task,” providing computing power to manage massive databases or operate within highly integrated environments.

“The first component of our strategy was a focus on momentum because there’s nothing like business momentum, and how you get business momentum is focus on execution and results,” he asserts. “Once you start to establish that momentum, that helps build up confidence, and we have a world-class team that has produced some very positive results in terms of IBM’s overall performance. It’s all grounded in focus, building the momentum, providing the right products that would allow our clients to see some type of value in terms of economic benefit.”

To achieve that end, Adkins believes Big Blue must be the definitive driving force for innovation. An engineer by training, he’s passionate about the prospects of new and inventive developments such as Watson: “We’re going in what I think is a much more exciting era, where systems like Watson that are analytic based can do deep computations on massive amounts of data to deliver new insights and new capabilities.”

This type of visionary thinking has earned the veteran stripes as one of Black Enterprise’s Most Powerful Executives in Corporate America. His achievements and management prowess has placed him among the leading candidates to replace retiring IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano. For his leadership role in bolstering business performance and driving innovation of one of the world’s largest and most profitable information technology corporations, Adkins has been selected as the 2011 Black Enterprise Corporate Executive of the Year.

The Driven Innovator
The fight for market share has been fierce as the $100 billion company with operations in 170 countries has squared off against a bevy of tough competitors such as EMC Corp., Oracle, HP, Microsoft, Accenture, and Cisco. The serious, focused Adkins appears to exhibit the drive to take them on: In his 30-year tenure with the company, he’s never taken a full week off.  (He recently decided to take a 10-day excursion next month to go on safari in Tanzania and tour the Taj Mahal in India to celebrate his wife’s 50th birthday.) His relentlessness enabled STG to post revenues of $4.7 billion for the second quarter, up an impressive 17% from the same period last year.

STG officials maintain that IBM develops an array of power systems software and hardware that help customers build IT infrastructures to become “on-demand” organizations that are flexible, scalable, and energy efficient. For instance, Tata Motors, India’s largest auto manufacturer with $7.95 billion in revenues, needed IBM to create a storage system to help protect data compiled through its CRM, or customer relationship management, system. Another customer, Hutchison Telecom, which provides mobile services throughout Asia, was impressed by IBM’s customer-focused approach to installing eServers at the core of its tech infrastructure without any service downtime.

To produce such testimonies, Adkins has developed a multidisciplined structure to guarantee top-flight performance. He develops “macro-teams,” bringing together marketing professionals from different business units to track trends that drive product requirements; customer counsels that test concepts; and development teams that work with IBM research to figure out technological capabilities and potential for new inventions. “That’s when we end up creating new products, new solutions, and new software that aid us in that innovation around the pain points,” says STG General Manager Adalio Sanchez of the department’s knowledge-based leadership. “Rod knows diversity of discipline, diversity of thought is a very powerful thing. This is a business that tries to drive and create new products, that quite frankly takes advantage of the best minds.”

Sanchez has known Adkins since the pioneering days of the PC business when the two line managers met during a breakfast meeting in Boca Raton, Florida, in 1984. Over the years, he has witnessed Adkins’ growth from an engineer to a corporate leader. Sanchez, who has been a peer during much of that time, now reports to Adkins. “One of the hallmarks of Rod’s leadership style is that he is open and flexible. You can speak your mind with Rod. Oh, and by the way, he is very good at putting you in your place when you need to be. But you don’t get to these kinds of levels without doing that.”

The Master Engineer
Attired in a blue-on-blue windowpane suit, white pique shirt with monogrammed French cuffs, ice blue tie, and cufflinks, Adkins takes us on a tour of STG at IBM offices in Somers, New York. He’s fighting a fever and sore throat but, true to form, he doesn’t let a cold interfere with the task at hand. His review of the company’s technological history coincides with his own corporate trajectory.

In his years at IBM, Adkins has worked in 19 different positions spanning almost all aspects of the company’s various business areas including hardware, software, UNIX servers, PCs, and mobile computing. He arrived at Big Blue as it expanded beyond massive mainframes to embrace the personal computing revolution of the 1980s. Like a museum curator, he shows off a model of a second-generation PC XT he worked on as an engineer in the 1980s. A bit later, he points to one of the first laptops in the 1990s, the IBM ThinkPad, which he helped design.

Adkins has played a significant role in IBM’s innovation-charged history. He has also traveled a long distance from Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood. The middle child, he was encouraged to strive for excellence by his hardworking, supportive parents. As a youngster, he became attracted to technology like a magnet to iron filings. Always curious, Adkins began tinkering with his family’s appliances. “If it plugged into the wall, I’m pretty sure I dismantled it,” he quips.

While his parents and teachers nurtured his intellect, he began to develop focus and discipline at age 11 by studying Nisei Goju Ryu, a Japanese martial art that built up confidence and inner strength. A black belt at age 13, he continued to practice this form of karate until about 15 years ago.  (Today, he applies his focus on the golf course to pursue his other passion.)

Adkins was his high school’s valedictorian, and he studied physics at Rollins College near Orlando, one of 25 African Americans among a student body of 1,200. He joined IBM upon graduation, leaving the company only once—to complete a master’s degree in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech.

Adkins deftly applied himself as a hardware engineer but soon discovered he had to be open to a diversity of assignments to advance within the company. “One of the things I typically advise young engineers and young computer scientists is always have a view of what your next two jobs should be,” he maintains. “[It] allows you to think about the best way to plan your career, moving forward. The other thing that helped me in my career is having opportunities in multiple parts of the business. Although I was an engineer, I accepted assignments in other disciplines.” His range of experiences not only developed broad skills, but increased his business and operating perspective. He quickly acquired a reputation as the go-to executive to tackle tough assignments.

On his first international project he collaborated with engineers at Yamato Development Laboratory in Japan on IBM’s first mobile PC called the p70. He held stints as general manager of PC Desktop Computing before taking over the UNIX Server business,and then Pervasive Computing Software. Adkins is now credited with putting the hardware business back on track after assuming the role in 2009 when his boss, Robert Moffat, was arrested in relation to the Galleon insider trading case. Installed in the position on an interim basis, Adkins was permanently promoted less than two weeks later.

Mentors guided Adkins through critical periods in his professional ascent. His most valuable lessons, however, came during the company’s darkest days. In the early 1990s, Big Blue could have been more aptly dubbed Big Red. Between 1991 and 1993, the company posted net losses of $16 billion due to increased competition and a flawed divestiture and reorganization plan. Its new CEO Louis V. Gerstner initiated a corporate turnaround, restructuring the IT business, adopting Internet strategies, promoting product integration, and remaking the corporate culture over the next decade. After laying off thousands of employees, slashing billions in expenditures, and selling assets, Gerstner converted IBM into a solutions-oriented, customer-obsessed company. “I learned that the most important thing in any given crisis is our ability to focus,” Adkins reflects. “There was a famous statement [from] Lou Gerstner when he was asked about vision and strategy. He said, ‘The last thing we need at this point is a vision’. Now, any company will have a vision and a strategy, but the point he was making was that it was much more about focus.”

The Stem Advocate
Adkins, a National Academy of Engineering inductee and board member of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, has made ensuring diversity in the industry one of his professional and personal missions. Currently less than 13% of the more than 70,000 U.S. engineering bachelor’s degrees in 2009 were awarded to minorities, according to NACME. African Americans have obtained only 4.7% of bachelor’s degrees in engineering. Adkins maintains that for companies like IBM, and the United States as a whole, to remain competitive in a global economy, business leaders and policy makers must work to reverse this trend.

As a member of the Board of Governors for the IBM Academy of Technology, Adkins takes a hands-on role in preparing the next generation of engineers and scientists. For example, he has been involved in the development of Pathways in Technology Early College High School, a new school for grades 9 to 12 in Brooklyn, New York, that’s the outgrowth of collaboration between IBM, the New York City Department of Education, New York City College of Technology, and the City University of New York. The students can graduate with an associate degree, along with the skills and knowledge necessary to continue their studies or transition directly into IT jobs.

Such “proactive intervention” is what’s required to increase the number of minorities in the tech sector’s executive ranks, says Arnold Donald, president & CEO of the Executive Leadership Council. Adkins represents a cadre of black professionals who have risen from the engineering ranks to the C-Suite and  “demonstrate to new generations of corporate professionals that you can go beyond the lab and use your science background to move up to the top levels of major corporations.”As one of IBM’s highest-ranking executives and a member of the leadership team, he has a real seat at the table influencing the direction of the company and its involvement in communities around the world.” Adkins’ post at IBM, one of black enterprise’s 40 Best Companies for Diversity, shows, Donald says, that “the company walks the walk when it comes to embracing diversity in evaluating performance.”

NACME’s President and CEO Irving Pressley McPhail says Adkins has been invaluable in “bringing IBM’s presence and opening up his Rolodex” to the organization’s efforts to raise scholarship funds, provide internships, and increase corporate representation. “Rod is passionate and very committed. He really wants to make a difference in what we see as an American dilemma, the underrepresentation of minorities in STEM.”

“He is an excellent mentor,” McPhail continues, “He is willing to take his time to work with individual students. It’s important just to take time with young, impressionable students so they can see that they can become a Rod Adkins one day—that they can ascend to be among the top three in leadership at IBM. That’s something they can’t get in any engineering program.” 

Making headlines (Courtesy of Thinkstock)

Obama Encourages Egyptian President to Step Down

• After weeks of civil unrest, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak announced he will not be running for another term during elections in the fall. He will, however, continue to serve out his current term. The announcement came after President Obama advised the leader of America’s closest Arab ally not to run.
• The decision comes a day after Egypt’s largest protest in support of Mubarak’s exit.

White House Announces ‘Startup America’

• The White House recently announced a national campaign involving several government agencies, including the Small Business Administration, universities, foundations and corporations, such as Facebook, Google, Intel and IBM to spur growth in entrepreneurship. The initiative will be overseen by AOL co-founder Steve Case.
• Most of the partner commitments deal with designing workshops for current business owners, funding new businesses and bringing entrepreneurship courses to higher education.

New York Daily News Appoints First Black Managing Editor

• Robert Moore has ascended the ranks at the New York Daily News; from staff writer to deputy managing editor to the newspaper’s first-ever African American managing editor.
• “He’s the perfect example of hard work paying off,” says Michael Feeney, staff writer for the Daily News. “He’s diligently worked his way up the ladder at the News. I hope to follow in his footsteps.”
• Moore is credited with drawing Black journalists to the NYC-based paper.

Raven-Symoné Making TV Comeback

• The That’s So Raven actress is making the transition from a cable staple back to network television with the announcement of her upcoming ABC Family sitcom, The Great State of Georgia. After starring in a Disney Channel hit, Raven is back on the small screen playing Georgia, a southern performer who attempts to make a name for herself in The Big Apple.

For related content, read:

• In the News: Turmoil in Egypt Continues; Martin Luther King III  Addresses Mets Rumors; Vick’s New Deal
• In the News: Mandela Released From Hospital; Will Smith & Jay-Z in Business; Egypt Can’t RT
• In the News: Will.I.Am Inks Tech Deal; Single Mom Jailed; Fired for Football

CyberSynchs LLC CEO Amos Winbush III

This week on The Urban Business Roundtable, UBR contributor Renita Young speaks with Amos Winbush III, CEO of CyberSynchs, a company which offers software that provides backup and synchronization of mobile devices. Winbush, who at 27, is a member of the BE Next generation, is considered as one of the top young entrepreneurial minds in the country, earning the Innovator of the Year Award at the 2010 Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference. Following that recognition, Winbush’s company was included in Entrepreneur Magazine‘s “100 Brilliant Ideas” and named to Inc. Magazine‘s “30 Under 30″ list of young entrepreneurs.

WATCH: Winbush shares advice with entrepreneurs in the technology space.

Currently supporting 98% of all mobile devices, CyberSynch’s users were expected to number 12 million-plus by the end of last year. In 2009, CyberSynchs posted revenues of $2 million; 2010 revenues were expected to double the previous year’s because of partnerships with Sun Microsystems, Samsung, and Microsoft BizSpark.

READ: “To Patent or Not to Patent?” Winbush gives his take.

Also on this week’s edition of The Urban Business Roundtable, our Executive Producer TaQuoya Kennedy speaks with Keith Wyche about his book, Good Is Not Enough: And Other Unwritten Rules for Minority Professionals, co-authored with Black Enterprise Multimedia Editorial Director Sonia Alleyne. Wyche, who has more than 30 years of experience as one of the nation’s most accomplished Black corporate leaders, has excelled at companies including Pitney-Bowes, Ameritech, AT&T, IBM and Cub Foods. He sits down with Kennedy to share practical, no-nonsense tips with the UBR audience on what it takes to make it to the top—and stay there.

WATCH: Wyche talks about what it takes to stand out from the crowd.

In addition, every week on UBR, you’ll get motivation and inspiration from author and entrepreneurial icon Farrah Gray, a weekly wrap-up of business news from USA Today Business Correspondent Charisse Jones, our Patient Investor Report from Ariel Investments and key economic intelligence for small business owners from our UBR Economists Derrick Collins and Rasheed Carter. And finally, I’ll share some of the “must dos” from our “Small Business Checklist: 11 Ways to Get Your House in Order for 2011.” I’ll also be sharing a special discount code that will allow UBR listeners to knock more than 50% off of the cost of registration for the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference, slated for May 22-25, 2011 in Atlanta, if they register by February 12.

If you have a question you want answered or a topic you want addressed on The Urban Business Roundtable, send me an e-mail at edmonda@blackenterprise.com or to me at Twitter or Facebook.

Alfred Edmond Jr.

Alfred Edmond Jr. is the senior VP/editor-at-large of Black Enterprise and the host of the Urban Business Roundtable, a weekly radio show, sponsored by Ariel Investments, airing CST Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 9:30 a.m. on WVON-AM 1690, the Talk of Chicago. You can also listen live online at WVON.com. Check back each Wednesday for The UBR Morning Post, which features additional resources, advice and information from and about the topics, entrepreneurs and experts featured on the show.

These BE Nexters—those 21–35 years old making a measurable impact within their respective business, organization, industry, or field—are standouts in the areas of entrepreneurship, corporate America, academia, nonprofit, the arts, and the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). And they prove every day that “business as usual” is not so usual. For them, leveraging expertise in one area to maximize an opportunity in another is standard operating procedure.

Using the legacy of their business predecessors to forge their own way, this new generation of leadership accepts the torch without trepidation. But the commonality between then and now is that success still takes a focused, strategic, and passionate mindset. Here, we introduce you to one of our 40 Next.

Folu Okunseinde, 29
Solutions Architect, IBM/Financial Services Solutions Group
Cambridge, MA
Okunseinde built high-speed messaging software used by clients in the financial services industry to disseminate information and execute orders for financial trades. It moves a message from one place to another in a millisecond, which can translate into millions of dollars and potentially aid other industries dealing with significant waves of data.

Margaret Garner

Margaret Garner, president of Broadway Consolidated Cos. Inc., a general contracting firm based in Chicago, holds a portfolio worth bragging about—nearly $10 million annually—thanks to her partnership with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. When the retail giant entered Chicago’s 37th ward around 2004 to construct its first store in an urban location, it sought assistance from local minority and women-owned businesses. Garner, whose firm is 8(a) certified, was selected to manage the project, becoming the first African American woman  to construct a Walmart store.

It wasn’t an easy undertaking, but when challenges with the project arose, Garner was able to solicit help. “I had direct access to all the levels of decision makers within the construction division so I had immediate conflict resolution,” she says. Wal-Mart’s mentoring enabled Garner to successfully complete the 150,000-square-foot, two-story retail store in September 2005. Since then, she has constructed another Wal-Mart property, Sam’s Club, which she completed in October 2008.

Mentoring programs help small minority companies learn about a company’s culture and expectations, develop a stronger network, and address their weak functional areas with corporate expertise, thereby learning what it takes to become better and more competitive suppliers. For corporations, mentoring minority suppliers means “building stronger suppliers for their supply chain,” explains Harriet R. Michel, president of the National Minority Supplier Development Council. According to the NMSDC, its corporate members purchased $104.7 billion in products and services from NMSDC-certified minority suppliers in 2007.

Wal-Mart’s supplier diversity program began in 1994 and is currently doing business with more than 2,500 minority suppliers. It does not have a formal mentoring curriculum but its initiatives, include initiating mentor and protégé relationships with existing suppliers and providing guidance to the suppliers on a one-on-one basis.

While Wal-Mart is a fairly recent player in corporate mentoring, a veteran is IBM, whose mentoring program began in 1968. In 2003, the firm partnered with the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College where during a three-day retreat IBM executives are paired with diverse suppliers for 18 months, and required to meet at least twice on a monthly basis.

IBM also hosts the Tuck-WBENC (Women’s Business Enterprise National Council) Executive Exchange program, an intensive, five-day executive development program for up to 60 women CEOs.

Wal-Mart works with its suppliers to identify  companies that have the potential to continue to grow to scale with the company over time, however, one of the biggest challenges for small businesses is scalability, explains Anthony Soto, Wal-Mart’s director of supplier diversity. Often, many small firms do not have the capacity to meet increased demands for their products or services.

At IBM, Michael K. Robinson, director of the global supplier diversity program, says because of challenges in the economy minority-owned businesses need to pursue broader areas for supplier opportunities. “Many suppliers are in the service area because the cost of entry is low,” he says, “but I emphasize to diverse suppliers to go into the manufacturing area, where it is low competition [and room] to create joint ventures.”

Small businesses interested in a supplier contract with a corporation and mentorship, should be familiar with the company’s competition, customer base, and growth areas, and be able to demonstrate how their services can further the business interests of that company.
For more information on mentoring opportunities, visit www.walmartstores.com and www.ibm.com.

This article originally appeared in the December 2009 issue of Black Enterprise magazine.

He received the Golden Torch Award from the National Society of Black Engineers for his efforts in information technology in 2007.

BlackEnterprise.com spoke with Wesley his responsibilities as a senior software architect and some of the hurdles African Americans face in the science and technology sector.

BlackEnterprise.com: What are some of the challenges African Americans face in the science and technology fields?

Ajamu Wesley: There are stereotypes around kids who looked like me that they may not be good at math, science or technology. This can confuse African-American children into expecting less of themselves or believing some goal is out of reach.

How did you overcome those challenges?

I was influenced by my parents, and I had a natural aptitude for computers.

You work on Lotus Connections software at IBM, which is geared towards small businesses. How does the program help growing companies?

Lotus Connections is a social networking product for businesses. Sites like Facebook and Twitter allow people to connect. Lotus applies [that] concept to businesses by allowing professionals to network and share information in a secure environment. It was IBM’s fastest growing software product last year.

What role do you play in helping with the continued evolution of this software?

I am responsible for building and leading the development of the core services. I spend a lot of time ensuring the product helps professionals to connect securely.

Lotus Connections is a suite which includes a set of core services for supporting a person’s homepage, profile, and groups. Along with the core services there are a set of tools for sharing information like blogs, wikis, file sharing, bookmarks and activities.

What are the three keys to your success?

One of the things that helped me is to develop a plan and then execute it. Spending time developing a career plan forces you to identify your personal goals, do an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, and specify the path you need to take to reach your goal.

Another focus has been on building a good reputation. Your reputation can work on your behalf when you aren’t around to do so yourself. I do my best to ensure that any projects I’m associated with are successful and make a positive impact.

I have also found that being willing to help others, like through mentoring, can also help.

How are you going to take your career to the next level?

I’m excited about my career path. I have led the development of inventions, patents, and new products. I’m still challenged with new opportunities. It has been fun developing a product [Lotus Connections] from scratch that has been so successful. In many ways social software is in its infancy and is becoming a much larger focus and initiative within IBM. I’m enjoying the ride.

How does what you do impact the black community?

Social networking sites and technologies are clearly pervasive within the black community with services like BlackPlanet.com, TribeFly.Com, and others. The sites are pertinent to businesses that are looking to market to a specific demographic as well. Lotus Connections allows businesses to build their own branded social networking experience that are tailored for their customers and communities of interest.

How does what you do tie into what President Barack Obama is trying to do to stimulate the economy? Where do you see your industry going in the next five years?

It was exciting seeing President Obama and IBM’s CEO Sam Palmisano meet recently [to discuss the stimulus plan]. The plan emphasizes investing in infrastructure, energy, and healthcare costs among other things. Many of these investments are possible because of information technology and other IBM offerings. IBM participates in many industries such as financial services, healthcare, and automotive in over 170 countries. We’re in a unique position to contribute to this agenda. I’m involved in working to design systems that can power software products with less energy. I also work with public schools, hospitals, and other customers to [help them] take advantage of advanced collaboration systems like Lotus Connections to improve efficiencies and reduce their costs.

For more information on African American innovators in the sciences, check out the March 2009 issue of Black Enterprise magazine.