Michael Lomax

Since 2004, Dr. Michael L. Lomax has served as president and CEO of UNCF (United Negro College Fund), the nation’s largest private provider of scholarships and other educational support to African American students. UNCF is a leading advocate for student’s need for an education and college readiness, from pre-school through high school, that prepares them for college success and better futures. Under his leadership, UNCF has raised more than $4 billion and helped more than 150,000 students earn college degrees and launch careers. Annually, UNCF’s work enables 50,000 students to go to college with UNCF scholarships and attend its 37 member historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). At UNCF’s helm, Dr. Lomax oversees the organization’s 400-plus scholarship programs, which annually award more than 12,000 scholarships worth more than $70 million. He also launched UNCF’s Institute for Capacity Building, which supports its 37 member HBCUs to become stronger, more effective and self-sustaining. Under Dr. Lomax’s leadership, UNCF has engineered partnerships with reform-focused leaders and organizations and worked to further advance HBCUs with Congress, the administration and the Department of Education. Dr. Lomax serves on the boards of the KIPP Foundation, Teach for America, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Handshake, Cengage and the Student Freedom Initiative. Before joining UNCF, Dr. Lomax was president of Dillard University in New Orleans and a literature professor at UNCF-member institutions Morehouse and Spelman Colleges. He also founded the National Black Arts Festival, was a founding member of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), a member of the Coca-Cola Equity Accountability Council and the Senate of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Dr. Lomax served as chairman of the Fulton County Commission in Atlanta, the first African American elected to that post.