Elected 1969; Life Trustee 1995
James H. Lowry, Senior Advisor to The Boston Consulting Group, is a nationally recognized workforce and supplier diversity expert and pioneer. Previously a Senior Vice President at BCG and Global Diversity Director, Jim led the firm’s workforce diversity, ethnic marketing and minority business development consulting practice. Prior to joining BCG, Lowry had his own firm, James H. Lowry & Associates (JHLA), which was established in 1975. In 1978, JHLA prepared the first major study on minority business enterprise development for The Department of Commerce entitled, New Strategy for Minority Business. In 2005, Lowry authored a new study entitled Realizing the New Agenda for Minority Business Development sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation, in conjunction with the Billion Dollar Roundtable. In 2009, Lowry authored a study on Capital Formation for the National Association of Investment Companies (NAIC). Over the years, Lowry has designed and implemented state of the art supplier diversity programs in the public sector for the cities of Louisville, Atlanta, and Chicago; and at the Federal level, for the Small Business Administration, the Department of Labor, and Department of Defense; within the private sector, for Burger King, AT&T, American Express, Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay, Toyota and Ford Motor Company. Lowry began his career in various positions with the U.S. Peace Corps including Associate Director in Lima, Peru. He later was Assistant to the President of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation before becoming the first African American at McKinsey & Company. He rose to Senior Associate for McKinsey & Company, serving in London, New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. His educational background includes an undergraduate degree in political science from Grinnell College and a master’s degree in public international affairs from the University of Pittsburgh. He attended the Program for Management Development at Harvard Business School and was elected president of his class. Lowry is the Academic Advisor for the Kellogg Advanced Management Education Program and Adjunct Professor at the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He, also, serves on Kellogg’s Advisory Board. He chairs the Durban, South Africa/Chicago Sister Cities Committee. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Howard University School of Business and serves as Chairman of the Howard University Entrepreneurship Center. He, also, chairs the RLJ Equity Fund and is a member of the Toyota Diversity Advisory Board. Lowry is the former Chairman of the Chicago Public Library Board, and former member of the Kraft Multicultural Council, the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations and Harvard Business School Visiting Committee. He co-hosted the groundbreaking television shows Inside Bedford Stuyvesant in 1966 and MBR: THE MINORITY BUSINESS REPORT in 1985. In 2009, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Minority Supplier Development Council. He was honored in the inaugural class of the Minority Business Enterprise Hall of Fame in 2005. He was awarded an honorary Doctors of Laws degree in 2009 from his alma mater, Grinnell College.
