Bruce S. Gordon, SF ‘88, has been named president of the NAACP, the nations oldest and largest civil rights group, a move greeted with enthusiasm by black business leaders and others impressed with his corporate background. Gordon says he will work to focus the NAACP on a more economic-based approach to civil rights. “I happen to think that when you have economic stability and equality,” he told the New York Times, “that often becomes an enabler for social equality.”



A 1988 graduate of the MIT Sloan Fellows Program, Gordon recently retired from Verizon, where he was president of the retail markets group with more than 30,000 employees and annual revenues of $20 billion. In recent years, Gordon has been named among Fortune magazines 50 Most Powerful Black Executives and Black Enterprise magazines Executive of the Year. Gordon has credited the MIT Sloan Fellows Program with giving him the critical insight he needed to reach those milestones.

-- From the upcoming issue of the MIT Sloan Alumni Quarterly, due out this fall.