as the 48-year-old leads approximately 9,700 employees at Ally Financial and serves as a Federal Advisory Council representative for the Seventh Federal Reserve District—a high honor in the banking world. He’s also a director of the Clemson University Foundation. On top of all of that, he’s the chairman of the Board of Trustees at Queens. Brown, along with President Dan Lugo and fellow
trustees are aiming to position Queens as Charlotte’s premier private university. Brown has confidence in the direction that the school is headed and sees his experience leading Ally as a complementary foundation to his board chair role.
“I believe Queens is just an unbelievable jewel of
a university,” said Brown. “It’s ready to blossom bigger than it ever has.” In the early 2000s, Brown enrolled in Queens’ MBA
program partly for the Hugh McColl Scholarship he won and also because he had a strong financial and business background from his undergraduate economics degree at Clemson. Te banker wanted something that would help him round out his education, and he found it at Queens. “Honestly, one of the things that intrigued me a lot
about Queens was it was more of a liberal arts orientation, even within the business school,” Brown explained, “and it had this motto, which was, ‘discover the leader within.’ ” As his Queens MBA classmates observed years ago, he had an early inclination on how to relate to people and meet
them where they were. But he also worked at it through his adherence to three key tenets in his professional life: credible communication (translation, doing what he says he’ll do), surrounding himself with good people and always protecting his boss in order to make that person his biggest advocate. Plus, President Lugo explained, he’s “wicked smart.” “If you bring those things to the table,” Lugo said, “if
you’re smarter than most people, if you function with values, if you take care of your team, if you do what you say you’re going to do, people see you as a leader, and they reward that.” And for Queens, it’s the right combination at the helm
of the board of trustees at the right moment. “Diversity and inclusion, social and economic mobility, and a people- centric approach are some of the elements central to his leadership and vision at Ally,” said President Lugo. “You can see an alignment with the strategic vision that we are working toward and putting forward at Queens.” As the world emerges from a pandemic and the
economy recovers from shutdowns, President Lugo and Brown see this moment as a time to grow and redefine the school and its position. A key tenet of their shared strategic vision is launching the university into national prominence. As Lugo said, “We’re not trying to get back to normal. We’re trying to actually come out and compete at a totally different level.” A focus on diversity, equity and inclusion is a core principle of Lugo and Brown’s vision for Queens. Tis is
J B’S L EADERSHIP STYL E, ACCORDING TO MANY
TAKE CARE OF YOUR TEAM
DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU’RE GOING TO DO
FUNCTION WITH VALUES
BE “WICKED SMART”
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