Boxcar to Boardrooms: My formula for 14 years of average annual double digit growth, restoring The Harlem Globetrotters, and changing busine - Paperback

by Arlene Matthews (Editor), Mannie L. Jackson (Author)

Mannie Jackson is President of Boxcar Holdings LLC, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Naismith Memorial Basketball of Fame, Chairman of the Board and owner of the Harlem Globetrotters, and Chairman and a founder of the Executive Leadership Council. After a brief professional basketball career in the National Industrial Basketball League and with the Harlem Globetrotters, Jackson went on to distinguish himself in corporate life as a senior executive with Honeywell Inc, and as one the first African-Americans to serve on multiple (six) Fortune 500 boards of directors. Jackson, a former All-Ten point guard and captain of the University of Illinois basketball team, has two honorary doctorate degrees. He built a career at Honeywell as president of that company's telecommunication business, which he built as a venture start-up by acquiring seven regionally interconnected companies and sourcing a highly publicized technology agreement with Sweden's LM Ericsson Co. Jackson went on in his career to rescue the Harlem Globetrotters from bankruptcy in 1992, when he became the first African-American to own outright a major sports and entertainment organization. In a short time the organization was revived as a dominant global brand reaching top quartile Q-ratings and accruing fourteen consecutive years of growth at an average annual rate of 14 percent. Mannie Jackson's inspirational memoir is an odds-beating story that spans his history-making careers in sports and business and chronicles his journey from being born in a rain-soaked railway boxcar to leadership and significance.

Author Biography

Mannie Jackson's story in many ways is that of the proverbial Horatio Alger( African-American )" literally born on the other side of the tracks" who, through a Big-Ten University education, all-star basketball career, the help of many good Samaritans, and a commitment to hard work, lived an incredible "rags to riches" life. This memoirs "Boxcar to Boardrooms" -Yes I was actually born and lived in a 58 foot railway boxcar in then tiny Illmo, Missouri. My story defies the odds of coming from humble beginnings, social and institutional racism of the late 50's and 60's, the corporate glass ceiling and the myths of affirmative action. Boxcar to Boardrooms will appeal to audiences from sports, business, and the multi cultural education sector. The Book retraces my life journey using personal and intimate anecdotes; from my Boxcar birthplace to presidency in a Fortune 500 company, serving on the board of directors of 6 Fortune 500 hundred companies and going from player to owner of the Harlem Globetrotters. You'll find this story as meaningful as the oppressive dramas of the pre-civil rights era, the post world war II era, the Viet Nam conflict, riots in our nations largest cities, and the tidal wave of desegregation. I share my experiences with the start up of the computer industry and its awakening of diversity, the ending of the cold war, the emergence of television and a new breed of sports and entertainment heroes and my historic 14 year ownership of the Harlem Globetrotters and a life of philanthropy