Going from making $4 an hour to becoming head of a Fortune 500 company sounds like the stuff of dreams, but it’s not, because that’s exactly what happened to Lowe’s CEO and Root 100 honoree Marvin Ellison. This year, Ellison was named the top Black CEO on the Fortune 500 list, and we’ll fill you in on how he got there.
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Marvin Ellison started career as a part-time employee at Target for $4.35 an hour. He reflected on this in a 2022 interview with “Shark Tank’s” Daymond John, adding that he was a college student at the University of Memphis. The business titan spent 15 years at the company, taking advantage of their development programs before making it to the director level.
Though Target has been at odds with the Black community this year—so much so that Root 100 honorees Senator Nina Turner, Pastor Jamal Bryant and activist Tamika Mallory led a powerful boycott against the company—it does boast its growth programs.
On the company’s website, it offers education, mentorship, leadership and management schemes for its employees. Using these programs to his advantage is one way that Ellison gave himself a professional edge in the retail industry. However, using the Target’s development programs is not the only way that Ellison made himself stand out on the corporate ladder.
In the 2022 interview, Ellison notes that he differentiated himself by doing the jobs that no one else wanted to do.
“I didn’t have a great pedigree, I didn’t have an Ivy League education… I had to find a way to differentiate myself, and the way I did that was by taking every tough assignment nobody else wanted,” Ellison told John. “That became my m.o. I’m going to take the job no one else wants, and I’m going to hope that I can get in there and build a good team and turn it around, and hopefully that opens up other opportunities.”
This forward thinking is what helped Ellison climb the Target ladder before moving to Home Depot, where he spent 12 years in senior-level operations roles, which included being Executive Vice President of U.S. stores from 2008 to 2014, according to Lowe’s. At the end of 2014, Ellison transferred over to Fortune 500 company J.C. Penney, where he made history as the company’s first-ever Black CEO, according to BuzzFeed News.
It wouldn’t be until 2018 that Ellison would become the CEO of Lowe’s. This feat in his career was another history-breaking moment, as it made him the first-ever Black American to be a CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, according to Lowe’s.
As of today, Ellison is only one of eight Black CEOs at a Fortune 500 company, according to Fortune. But in his 2022 interview with “Shark Tank’s” Daymond John (when he was only one of six Black CEOs at a Fortune 500 company), Ellison said the position gives him “mixed emotions.”
“On one hand, I feel incredibly privileged and blessed to be in this role because it gives me a chance to hopefully be a positive role model, and also to create a pathway for other people who look like me and you. On the other hand, I’m really disappointed that in 2022, we still have such a significant gap in the capability that exists out there, and the opportunities for individuals who look like me to be in a role like this. I know that I am a representative of positive change.”
Not only is Ellison a positive role model for Black Americans, but he continues to fight for diversity and inclusion within the workplace. Proof is in Lowe’s Inclusion Network, a program that allows associates across the company to access growth opportunities and support in the company.
While hundreds of companies rolled back their DEI initiatives earlier this year, Lowe’s stood ten toes down in fostering a welcoming working environment for its employees, which is just another reason why The Root is honoring Marvin Ellison this year.
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