Agenia Clark

Dr. Agenia Clark was announced as the 18th President of Fisk University in October 2023. She joins the University after years of experience in higher education, serving on the boards of the Tennessee Board of Regents, Simmons University, and Belmont University, and is an emerita on the Advisory Board of the University of Tennessee’s Haslam School of Business. Dr. Clark’s commitment to higher education started with her volunteer instructional work at Fisk University. It continued with a gubernatorial appointment to serve a six-year term on the Tennessee Board of Regents, which, during her tenure, had oversight of the state’s six universities (excluding the University of Tennessee system), all the state’s community colleges, and technology centers. Her work with the Regents was followed by her tenure on the board of trustees for Simmons University, a women’s liberal arts school in Boston, Massachusetts. Most recently, she served as a trustee for Nashville’s Belmont University. Dr. Clark was recently honored as the 2021 “Nashvillian of the Year,” and is a member of Women Corporate Directors (“WCD”), where she has served as the co-chair of the Tennessee chapter. She is also a member of the International Women’s Forum (IWF), Nashville’s Agenda, and is a member of the 2016 Class of Leadership Tennessee and the 1998 Class of Leadership Nashville. She was the former president and CEO of Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee, vice president of human resources for the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation, senior director of human resources at Vanderbilt University, and worked in numerous leadership roles at Nortel Networks, a Canadian multinational telecommunications corporation. Dr. Clark serves on the corporate board of directors for FirstBank Financial Corporation (NYSE: FBK). On the FirstBank board, she serves as an independent director, sitting on the Risk Committee, the Compensation Committee, and the Nominating and Governance Committee. Before joining FirstBank, she was a founding corporate director of Avenue Bank (2007), one of Nashville’s fastest-growing banks, before an IPO offering in February 2015 and a merger with Pinnacle Bank in September 2016. Dr. Clark has been recognized in the Nashville Business Journal as one of “Nashville’s 100 Most Powerful People” in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2023. An inductee into the Academy for Women of Achievement, she is also “Nashville Post” Person-In-Charge (2014 – 2022).