The Ronald H. Brown Leadership Award is inspired by the outstanding leadership of the late U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Ronald H. Brown. As the first African-American to serve as the Department’s Secretary, he was a staunch advocate for diversity and business expansion. The Award recognizes individuals who have achieved significant results in creating diversity, expanding minority business enterprise and who have demonstrated exceptional leadership in the public or private sector.
The Ronald H. Brown Leadership Award is presented to Dr. Fred McKinney, Managing Director of Minority Business Programs for Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Dr. Fred, as everyone knows him, has dedicated his career to helping minorities achieve economic self-sufficiency through inclusion in the national economy. He personifies the values that make MBDA an essential element of the support system for the minority business men and women that MBDA serves. He started his work in minority business development in 1972 when he entered UCLA as a freshman and started working for Dr. C.Z. Wilson, Vice Chancellor of UCLA. In 1983, he started Jamaica Gourmet Coffee, a wholesale gourmet coffee company. In 1999, Dr. Fred started a new company, Advanced Dispensing Systems, based on a U.S. patent for dispensing whole bean coffee in retail environments with over half a million dollars in outside capital to fund strategic growth. Dr. Fred has published three books on his work on minority
supplier development and corporate supplier diversity. In addition, to these books, he has published over 100 articles in the minority business press featuring his work and thoughts on minority business development and how the national and global economy have evolved.
Dr. Frederick W. McKinney, Managing Director
Hanover, New Hampshire
Media Coverage
Resident honored by U.S. Commerce Department
Trumbull resident Frederick W. McKinney, managing director of the Minority Business Program’s Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, recently received the 2017 Ronald Brown Leadership Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce.