A number of BETF-Blog Readers have asked me about the Information Technology Senior Management Forum (ITSMF). I came across a comprehensive article that was published awhile ago in Minority Business News. I encourage you to take a moment to read the full article if you have time or inclination.Some of the highlights include:
Carl Williams reached a lofty perch in the elite information technology industry in 1980s and ’90s when IT was not the most fashionable place for Africans Americans to be.
For some 20 years starting in the early 1980s, Williams worked in senior level IT positions as a chief information officer or vice president of information systems and technology for some large and important companies, including advertiser DDB Needham Worldwide and publisher Macmillan Publishing in New York, petrochemical firm Amoco Corp. in Chicago and investment house Principal Financial Group in Des Moines, Iowa.
His positions and active affiliations with organizations like the Society for Information Management put him in the loop of influence in the IT sector nationally. Yet, Williams would gaze across the landscape and could count other African Americans in executive positions in the field on one hand.
"I was constantly being sourced for senior-level professionals who happened to be people of color, and my pipeline was kind of dry," Williams said.
He decided he would move to fill and nurture that starved pipeline with African American IT talent, establishing the Information Technology Senior Management Forum in 1996. The ITSMF is a national organization focused on developing upper-level executive talent among African Americans in IT.
"My motivation was that I could see that it was a pretty decent career for folks if they really wanted to get into it and aspire to the top jobs," said Williams, the founding chairman who is now retired and consulting in Durham, NC
The organization says that fewer than 3 percent of all senior-level IT managers in the United States are African American — despite an African American population of 12.9 percent. The 95-member forum’s goal is to achieve a 10 percent participation of African Americans at all levels of IT management.
The ITSMF achieves its goals through sharing and leveraging members’ experiences, becoming role models and providing training, establishing networking platforms, identifying senior IT management promotion opportunities, developing strategic partnerships and mentoring high-potential IT professionals.
The group holds quarterly meetings, including one held in conjunction with the annual BDPA technology conference, and members openly discuss issues in IT, along with sharing ideas for advancing their careers.
The organization also holds an annual awards ceremony where it attracts high-level IT executives and presents awards to IT industry leaders and its corporate partners, which include Deloitte, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard and EDS.
Another component for the organization is to create role models for aspiring African American professionals to emulate. "There aren’t many mentors for us that look like us. Our Executive Protégé Program provides a solution for that challenge by matching up and coming African American leaders with seasoned veterans. EPP is one of our cornerstone programs and allows our members to engage in mentoring to others and pass on some of their secrets to success," Curvie Burton said.
[NOTE: The photo at the top shows the 2006-07 ITSMF Executive Board Members are (back row, left to right) Robert Perrin, networking Magellan Associates; Michael McNeil, membership, Pitney Bowes; Michael Robinson, Corporate Partners Program, Microsoft; Larry Quinlan, vice chairperson Deloitte; Carl Williams, ITSMF founder; Curvie Burton, chairperson, EDS; Bruce Carver, corporate secretary, Dana; Doug Ash, Executive Protégé Program, Lockheed Martin; Jerome Oglesby, personnel, Deloitte; and A.J. Pearson, programs, HSBC; (Bottom row, left to right) are Kim Tubbs-Herron, marketing, Microsoft; Viola Maxwell-Thompson, executive director; Louise Tilmon, executive assistant; Stephanie Hill, finance, Bank of America, and Elaine Norman, bylaws, American Cancer Society].
Would you care to share your thoughts on ITSMF? Have you seen more Black executives in the IT industry over the past decade?
