Jeffrey A. Robinson
Ph.D. Ass’t. Prof. of Mgm’t & Entrepreneurship, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University, New York City. Age: 34
Among his current projects at New York University’s Stern School of Business, Jeffrey Robinson, Ph.D., is studying businesses owned by African-American women entrepreneurs whose revenues exceed $1 million to determine what accounts for their viability, growth and sustainability. The study is in keeping with his contention that a lot more research needs to be done by Black scholars on the challenges facing the Black community. While the African-American community has made appreciable strides on the political front, the same cannot be said for economic gains, he argues. “If you have the economics, then you can create the foundation or the institution or the school that will be the type of school that you want, with the right levels of education and training. You can fund the political candidates that you want to put out there and use that as a basis for political power,” he says.
Robinson holds a bachelor’s degree in urban studies and a bachelor’s in civil engineering from Rutgers University, a master’s in civil engineering management from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in management and entrepreneurship from Columbia University. He co-founded three entrepreneurial ventures, one of them, MBS Educational Services and Training, while he was still an undergraduate at Rutgers University in New Jersey. In 1999, he joined Inner City Consulting, followed in 2000 by BCT Partners, a multi-million-dollar management, technology and policy consulting firm that still operates in Newark, N.J. With Randal Pinkett, a former college roommate and winner of NBC’s reality hit show, The Apprentice, he is writing a book, entitled “Black Faces in White Places,” to encourage young Black men to take advantage of opportunities available to them.
Scholar, entrepreneur, husband, father, Robinson still finds time for community service, including mentoring youth. Among his many volunteer activities, he is a board member of the New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute, the National Institute of Urban Entrepreneurship and Abundant Life Community Development Corp, in New Brunswick, N.J.
