Speaker Biographies
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. is a Senior Managing Director of Lazard Frères & Co. llc in New York. He works with a diverse group of clients across a broad range of industries.
Prior to joining Lazard, Mr. Jordan was a Senior Executive Partner with the law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP, where he remains Senior Counsel. While there Mr. Jordan practiced general, corporate, legislative and international law in Washington, D.C.
Before Akin Gump, Mr. Jordan held the following positions: President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban League, Inc.; Executive Director of the United Negro College Fund, Inc.; Director of the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council; Attorney-Consultant, U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity; Assistant to the Executive Director of the Southern Regional Council; Georgia Field Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and an attorney in private practice in Arkansas and Georgia.
Mr. Jordan’s presidential appointments include: the President’s Advisory Committee for the Points of Light Initiative Foundation; the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on South Africa; the Advisory Council on Social Security; the Presidential Clemency Board; the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission; the National Advisory Committee on Selective Service; and the Council of the White House Conference “To Fulfill These Rights.” In 1992, Mr. Jordan served as the Chairman of the Clinton Presidential Transition Team.
Mr. Jordan’s corporate and other directorships include: American Express Company (Senior Advisor); Asbury Automotive Group, Inc.; Howard University (Trustee); Lazard Ltd; Xerox Corporation; International Advisory Board of Barrick Gold.
Mr. Jordan is a graduate of DePauw University and the Howard University Law School. He holds honorary degrees from more than 60 colleges and universities in America. He is a member of the Bars of Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Georgia and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the National Bar Association, the Council on Foreign Relations and The Bilderberg Meetings. Mr. Jordan is the author of Vernon Can Read! A Memoir (Public Affairs, 2001) and Make It Plain, Standing Up and Speaking Out (Public Affairs, 2008).
Dr. Ella Bell
Ella L.J. Edmondson Bell PhD is founder and president of ASCENT. ASCENT is a national, not-for-profit organization committed to the professional development and corporate career advancement of multicultural women. She is an internationally recognized scholar, author, and consultant on race, gender, and social class in organizations.
Education
BA, Mills College of Education, 1971; MA, Columbia University, 1973; PhD, Case Western Reserve University, 1987. At Tuck since 2000.
Areas of Expertise
Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior.
Consulting/ Executive Education
Professor Bell has taught executive education for several years and served as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies and public institutions. Representative clients include Salomon Smith Barney, Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Meridian Bank, General Foods, The Southern New England Telephone Company, The New York Public Library, United Way Services, Union County Public Schools, and Loyola College. She also appeared on CNN'S "Democracy in America '96" series as an expert on race relations in the workplace.
Awards
Outstanding Young Woman of the Year, Greater Cleveland Urban League, 1981; American Sociological Minority Fellowship, American Sociological Association, 1983-86; Outstanding Educator Award, Coalition of a Hundred Black Women, 1989; Bunting Fellow, Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, 1993-94; McGregor Award for Best Paper, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 2001.
Publications
Professor Bell's research has focused on the career and life histories of professional African-American and European-American women. She is an expert on organizational change and the management of race, gender, and class in organizational life. She has published widely in management journals and she has authored several book chapters. Along with her colleague, Dr. Stella M. Nkomo, she wrote the book Our Separate Ways, Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity (Harvard Business School Press, 2001). Her work has been reported in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Charlotte Business Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, Working Women, BusinessWeek, Black Enterprise, and Essence.
Background
In addition to her work at Tuck, Professor Bell has been an associate professor at the Belk College of Business Administration, University of North Carolina and and an assistant professor at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has also served on the faculties at Yale University and the University of Massachusetts.
Terry McMillan
International best-selling author of Waiting to Exhale and How Stella GotHer Groove Back, Terry McMillan was introduced to literature while shelving books at the library. Stung by James Baldwin’s spotlight eyes, she remembers this milestone moment as the one that introduced her to the possibility that black folks wrote books too.
Since her breakout novel Waiting to Exhale surged onto The New York Times bestseller list, critics and readers alike have been captivated by her irreverent, often-hilarious take on the issues faced by contemporary African-American women. With several of her bestsellers, including Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and Disappearing Acts, made into hit movies, she has made her mark on both the literary world as well as in Hollywood.
McMillan began her career in fiction with the New Renaissance Writers’ Guild. As a single mother, she started her days before dawn, writing as much as she could before it was time to get the baby ready and take the train to work. She edited her morning’s work on the subway and rewrote during her lunch break, editing again on the ride home.
She eventually expanded her short story, Mama into her first breakout novel, winning the Doubleday New Voices in Fiction Award in 1986 for as well as an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1987. Mama initially followed standard practice: a short print run with little or no book tour budget. McMillan put her data entry and entertainment industry skills to work, contacting every black college and bookstore in the country, and assembled her own nationwide book tour that prompted the printing of additional books before the first copy hit stores.
Her second novel, Disappearing Acts, received critical acclaim, selling more than two million copies after its release in 1989 and Wesley Snipes and Sanaa Lathan brought Disappearing Acts to HBO. McMillan next wrote A Day Late and a Dollar Short which also became a New York Times bestseller.
McMillan wrote Waiting to Exhale during her tenure as a professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. No one could predict how it would change publishing and film. The hardcover release spent more than 38 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Forest Whitaker brought the book to great success on the big screen, winning seven Grammy Awards and an MTV Movie Award, among others.
In 1995 McMillan’s Jamaican vacation inspired her novel, How Stella Got Her Groove Back. A departure from her prior work, the stream-of-consciousness fantasy was completed in 30 days. Stella was met with critical acclaim, debuting at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list, where remained for weeks. In 1999, McMillan’s co-wrote the screenplay for the film which appeared on the big screen to sold-out audiences.
In 2002, McMillan won an NAACP Image Award and an Essence Award. She released her first non-fiction effort in 2006 under the title, Its Okay if You’re Clueless, and 23 More Tips for the College Bound. Her most recent work of fiction is The Interruption of Everything. McMillan is currently at work at her next book and is also working on a signature household line.
Ken Bouyer
Ken is Ernst & Young’s Americas Director of Inclusiveness Recruiting. Ken has served in a variety of roles since joining the firm in 1990. Prior to his current role, Ken was a Director in the Americas Advisory Services Practice, serving various Global internal audit clients. He still continues to serve Chevron as a client.
As the Americas Director of Inclusiveness Recruiting, Ken is responsible for developing and implementing a recruiting strategy that focuses on creating a diverse talent pool. Inclusiveness at Ernst & Young is defined broadly and includes gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, and generational differences. Fostering an inclusive culture where all individuals can achieve their full potential is a global priority and a business imperative for Ernst & Young. The firm strives to reflect the changes in world demographics—taking into account the new mix of cultures and individual characteristics that build our talent pool.
Ken has served on several AICPA committees including as a Board Member and the International President of Beta Alpha Psi. He has also served on the Board of Directors for the Federation for the Schools of Accountancy (FSA). Ken is a recipient of the FSA's "Practitioner Service Award" for his distinguished service to the profession of accounting and accounting education.
Ken has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting, from Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. Ken is a Certified Internal Auditor. Ken currently resides in New Jersey with his wife Shorn and their daughter Kelsie.