Thasunda Brown Duckett will succeed Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., as TIAA’s president and CEO starting May 1, the company said Thursday.
Duckett is currently chief executive officer of consumer banking at JPMorgan Chase. She will become the second Black woman CEO to helm a Fortune 500 company currently, following the appointment last month of Rosalind Brewer to run Walgreens. Before Duckett and Brewer, there had been only one other Fortune 500 Black woman CEO, Ursula Burns who ran Xerox, plus Mary Winston, who served as interim CEO at Bed, Bath & Beyond.
“Thasunda is widely recognized as an exceptionally dynamic and inspirational leader,” said Ronald L. Thompson, who chairs the board of the $1 trillion money management firm. “She brings invaluable experience leading and growing large, complex businesses, setting and executing strategy, improving client experience and attracting and developing talent. Equally important, she [has] a passion for financial inclusion and empowerment.”
The number of Black CEOs at Fortune 500 companies remains dismally low. There have only been 19 since the Fortune 500 list was launched in 1955.
With the announced retirement of Merck CEO Ken Frazier coming in June, there will only be three Black CEOs: Marvin Ellison of Lowe’s, Brewer at Walgreens and Duckett at TIAA.
“TIAA’s action is indicative of our mantra of diversity at the top being an imperative for driving diversity throughout the organization,” said Crystal Ashby, interim CEO of the Executive Leadership Council, which aims to raise the visibility of Black executives.
Duckett herself has also stressed the importance of doing more to address the financial inequities facing Black families.
“We must take an unvarnished look at the stark and persistent disparities in wealth for Black Americans today, created largely by centuries of systemic racism. And we must have courageous conversations about being Black in America,” she wrote last week on LinkedIn.
