At the Arizona State University + Global Silicon Valley (ASU+ GSV) Summit on April 9, Michael Lomax, president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund, received the GSV 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes his legacy of leadership, service, and impact on higher education.
“Dr. Lomax is not only a champion for higher education—he is a force for transformation,” said Chris Howard, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Arizona State University. “His leadership has opened doors for hundreds of thousands of students, especially those historically excluded from opportunity. This award honors a lifetime devoted to justice, excellence and the power of education to change lives.”
With a career in education that spans more than five decades, Dr. Lomax has led the UNCF for the past 20 years. Under his leadership, the organization has raised over $4 billion to support more than 150,000 students pursue a postsecondary degree. One of his most notable accomplishments was establishing the UNCF Institute for Capacity Building, an initiative supporting UNCF’s 37 member institutions to thrive as self-sustaining entities.
Before his tenure with UNCF, Dr. Lomax served as the fifth president of historically Black Dillard University in New Orleans. In addition to faculty appointments at Morehouse College and Spelman College in Atlanta, he has held roles in public service, including director of research and special assistant to Maynard H. Jackson, the first Black mayor of Atlanta. He also had stints as the first African American chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners and as president of the National Faculty, an Atlanta-based organization dedicated to connecting higher education scholars with K-12 teachers.
“I accept this award not as an individual milestone, but as a celebration of the collective—of every student, every partner, every institution that dared to believe in the power of education to liberate, elevate, and transform,” said Dr. Lomax. “Together, we’ve pushed boundaries and reimagined what’s possible. And the work is far from finished.”
Dr. Lomax holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Morehouse College, a master’s degree in English literature from Columbia University in New York, and a Ph.D. in American and African American literature from Emory University in Atlanta.
