Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/61383
Black Enterprise publisher Earl Graves is inducted into the Small Business Administration Hall of Fame in September 2003 in Washington, D.C. our society better, it's going to take a lot of changes that are not happening as fast as they need to. Most of those changes have to do with education and opportu- nity. This morning, at my senior managers meeting, we reviewed the requirements we have for bringing in interns for the summer. We want to give young people an opportu- nity to write an article for our magazine.We recently hired a girl who was co-captain of the golf team at Yale University and put her in charge of our golf tournament.We work at it. I meet kids all the time. When I'm going through the air- ed we wanted to take the resources we had and make a difference in education, whether we were donating to Morgan State or Howard University. My wife is a trustee at Brooklyn College. Our sons are also involved. One is the finance chairman for the Thurgood Marshall Fund, and another is a trustee of the Meharry Medical College in Nashville. My sense is, if we're going to make certain problems. American Airlines had issues with the union, and Daimler- Chrysler has had issues trying to inte- grate two entities. But they've all been very interesting challenges. If I were to interview CEOs and ask therefore, I make that contribution. But I also think it's important that I ask the question about diversity—or, a bet- ter word, integration. I ask the question, "What are we doing in the marketplace in terms of going after the African American community?" I'm reaching the twilight of the time I can serve on port, they call "Mr. Graves!" and introduce themselves. I give them a card and say, "When you finish business school, you call me." I've hired at least five of them. I met one guy at the airport who was on his way to Harvard Business School. Three years later, he called me and said, "I'm here." Now he's the co-director of the private equity fund. This happens to me all the time. I try particularly to help African Americans, but I don't limit it to that. In New York City, we recently had a 16-year-old young- ster killed in what the police commissioner himself called an unprovoked act. I called Ray Kelly, the police commission- er, and said, "Let me know what I can do. I think it has something to do with training. If you want me to have a forum with some of your higher-ranking executives, I'll do it." Again, that's just part of giving back. You also serve as a director of five corporations. In light of recent corporate scandals, when some people have blamed boards of directors for not watching corporate executives closely enough, do you see your role changing? Significantly. I'm on two audit committees. Our meetings used to last half an hour, now they're lasting hours. That's because of all the new regulations. I was fairly particular about which boards I wanted to serve on, and I looked at companies I knew would not be controversial. Obviously, some of them are dealing with them, "Besides the fact that you needed a minority, can you tell me why I'm on this board?" I don't think the answer would be that they ran out of smart white people. I'm there because I make a viable contribution. For instance, I'm on the board at Federated because I love shopping. I know selling and marketing; boards. I'm getting close to 70, and most of the boards require you to step down when you reach 70. But I have three sons, and two are already serving on corporate boards. ple like to shop. Wal-Mart sells more soda than any grocery store in the country. So how do you fight Goliath? Or we might talk about how to do more with the Internet, because 20 percent of people today shop for Christmas gifts on the Internet. At American Airlines, we might talk about how many people are reserving airline tickets online. At Aetna we know that 44 million Americans don't have health care. What can we do at Aetna to be spokespeople for health care and still make a profit? As directors, we come to board meetings and we're chal- BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2004 If you were presenting a guest lecture to a business class, and your topic was governance, what would you tell students about why they should serve on corporate boards in the future? Today, a lot of people are becoming directors for a very basic reason. Most are CEOs of their own companies, and they want to learn from the experience of being on another board. Particularly with the recent upheavals and the ques- tioning of integrity of boards, you don't see people serving on boards because they're going to get rich doing it. They do it because it's an exchange. They can learn something about other businesses, and then they can be in a better position in their own companies. At a Federated board meeting, we'll talk about how peo- 25