The School of Government extends its congratulations to faculty member and ncIMPACT Initiative Director Anita Brown-Graham on her receipt of the inaugural Andrea L. Harris Legacy Award. This honor, given by Triangle Business Journal, celebrates public figures continuing the work of its namesake to promote the minority business community in the Research Triangle area. 

Brown-Graham was chosen as the first person to receive this honor in large part due to her work leading the School’s ncIMPACT Initiative, an effort across the state to help local communities leverage data and devise solutions to complex policy issues, such as economic mobility, poverty, education access, and more. A committee of minority leaders in academia, business, public policy, and lobbyists chose Brown-Graham to be the first to hold this honor.

For Brown-Graham, receiving this award is personal. She met Harris upon moving to North Carolina in 1994 and remembered her as a “friend, mentor, and serious accountability partner.”

"Some of us wake up every day trying to figure out a way to make the world a better place," Brown-Graham said. "Few of us actually do that every single day. Andrea Harris was one of those people, and while I don't pretend by any stretch of the imagination to be that person, she inspired me to try."

The Journal hosted a virtual fireside chat on July 15 with Editor-in-Chief Sougata Mukherjee to celebrate Brown-Graham’s exemplification of Harris’s legacy. Panelists for the event spoke of the challenges and successes of connecting minority businesses with the larger Triangle corporate community moving forward. These panelists included:

• Farad Ali: President & CEO, Asociar
• Mary Crawford: Senior Director of Procurement & Supply Chain Management, Duke University and Duke Health
• Paulette Dillard: President & CEO, Shaw University
• Lew Myers: Chairman, The Institute

Read more about the Andrea L. Harris Legacy Award here.