Avenger of the Week | Mellody Hobson, Co-CEO and President of Ariel Investments

GenderAvenger Founder Gina Glantz introduces us to this week's Avenger of the Week.

Avenger of the Week Mellody Hobson and I share a birthday, a passion for social justice, and an enduring friendship. Mellody, the youngest of six children, graduated from high school in Chicago and went on to Princeton. While in college she interned at Ariel Investments, and today she is Co-CEO and President of Ariel Investments, the  country’s oldest African American-owned asset management company.

In March, upon becoming Chair of the Starbucks Board of Directors, Mellody became the only African American chairwoman of a Fortune 500 company. She is also a director of JPMorgan Chase. Mellody is actively engaged in the community, serving as Chair of After School Matters, a Chicago non-profit that provides area teens with high-quality afterschool and summer programs, and co-chair of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Her other board memberships include the George Lucas Education Foundation, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Mellody is a graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of International Relations and Public Policy, and she has received honorary doctorate degrees from Howard University, Johns Hopkins University, St. Mary’s College, and the University of Southern California.

This resume alone makes her worthy of Avenger status. However, it is an insufficient representation of who she is and what she has done with her bully pulpit and resources. Early on in her career, she financially supported educational innovation in Chicago. As her public presence grew, she boldly told a TED audience not to be color blind but to be color brave. Over four million views later, she continues to share that message. Just last year, she was responsible for Princeton renaming a student residential college on campus from Woodrow Wilson Hall to Mellody Hobson Hall. The message of acceptance of a racist president will be replaced with the promise of a great future for students of color and particularly women of color.

And, of course, she is the founding funder of GenderAvenger.

Mellody Hobson, a treasured friend and abiding advocate for racial and gender justice, is our GenderAvenger of the Week.

The @GenderAvenger #AvengerOfTheWeek is @MellodyHobson, who became Chair of Starbucks Board of Directors in March, making her the only Black chairwoman of a Fortune 500 company. "Bravery is not the absence of fear, it is overcoming it." #GenderAvenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/avenger-of-the-week-mellody-hobson