CHICAGO SCHOLARS CEO NAMED OBAMA FOUNDATION LEADER
CHICAGO SCHOLARS CEO NAMED OBAMA FOUNDATION LEADER
By Tia Carol Jones
Jeffery Beckham, Jr., CEO of Chicago Scholars and Co-CEO of Reach Pathways, has been named an Obama Foundation Leader.
Beckham has been the CEO of Chicago Scholars since 2023. The organization was founded in 1996, with the goal to provide access to post-secondary education to low-income students.
Beckham is one of 100 Obama Foundation Leaders in the United States. There are more than 200 Obama Foundation Leaders across the globe. He said he applied because of the leadership development aspect of the program. Since one of the core tenants at Chicago Scholars is leadership development, the team spends a lot of time talking to the students about leadership, what it is and how to activate it in themselves. As the CEO, Beckham knows it is important for him to develop and grow as a leader.
“I don’t think there’s a better place than working alongside the Obama Foundation and this fellowship in developing current and future leaders,” he said.
Beckham said that when he found out he had been chosen for the program, he was beyond excited. He was grateful to be seen and recognized as a leader and to have an opportunity to be part of a global community of leaders. The emphasis on values-based leadership resonates with him and he is eager to bring the lessons he learns back to the work he does in Chicago.
“Whether that’s getting to engage with diverse perspectives from the other leaders in the program to thinking about how we build collective impact models, it’s exceptionally exciting to think about the change we can create in the world and in Chicago,” he said.
Beckham and the other leaders have been able to dive right into building skills. Their first session focused on the power of storytelling, hearing from leaders like Ben Rhodes, who worked as a deputy national security advisor for strategic communications and speechwriter for President Barack Obama. Beckham’s cohort includes four other leaders from across the United States. He has been able to spend time with the group and hear about the amazing things they are doing. Hearing other perspectives and insights is helping him build his foundational leadership.
The art and power of storytelling has resonated with Beckham the most. He said he believes in a person using their story to bring people together. It is something he does in talking about the students in the Chicago Scholars program, as well as in his painting and the artwork that he creates. He uses the stories of people of color who come from marginalized backgrounds to build bridges and connect people.
Throughout the course of the next six months, Beckham and the other leaders will be building their own leadership story and narrative to build bridges, insight and collective power, while working to establish the goals as individual leaders. Beckham intends to use the connections he makes as an Obama Foundation Leader to enhance the work at Chicago Scholars and Reach Pathways and connect those students with opportunities that can change their lives.
For more information about Chicago Scholars, visit www.chicagoscholars.org.
For more information about Obama Foundation Leaders, visit www.obama.org/programs.
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