Pitt’s BAS, Society of Black Engineers Set Randall Pinkett Lecture

Randall Pinkett

As part of the celebration of Black History Month at the University of Pittsburgh, entrepreneur Randall Pinkett will speak at 7:15 p.m. Feb. 19 in the Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) Auditorium. Doors will open at 6:45 p.m. The event, cosponsored by Pitt’s Black Action Society (BAS) and National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), is free and open to the public, but students will be given priority seating.

Pinkett is the cofounder, chair, and CEO of BCT Partners, a multimillion-dollar management, technology, and policy consulting firm. BCT Partners works with corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations in the areas of housing and community development, economic development, human services, health care, and education.

The season-four winner of NBC’s reality television show The Apprentice, Pinkett has remained involved with the Trump organization as a national spokesperson for the Trump Institute, a faculty member at Trump University, and a boardroom advisor to The Apprentice.

Pinkett has received many awards and recognitions—most notably as the first African American to receive a Rhodes Scholarship at Rutgers University in 1994. Among his other achievements are an NSBE Distinguished Fellow Award (1992), the Lucent Technologies Cooperative Research Fellowship (1997), the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (1998), the MIT Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Leadership Award (2002), the Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Fellowship (2003), and the Achievements Leadership New Jersey Fellowship (2004).  He also has been featured in several publications and was named among the “30 Leaders of the Future” by both Black Enterprise and Ebony magazines in 2000 and 2001, respectively.

Pinkett has earned five academic degrees, including a BS in electrical engineering at Rutgers and an MS in computer science at the University of Oxford. From the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he received an MBA degree in business administration, an MS degree in electrical engineering, and a PhD degree in media arts and sciences. He is the author of Campus CEO: The Student Entrepreneur’s Guide to Launching a Multimillion-Dollar Business (Kaplan, 2007).

Pinkett maintains an active public role.  He has been featured on the Today show, Live With Regis and Kelly, and CNN, and is a regular segment host for the CEO Exchange on PBS. He also is the national spokesperson for Autism Speaks and Entrepeneurship Week/USA and the campaign spokesperson for New Jersey Reads.