Frederick McKinney
Dr. Fred McKinney is the co-founder of BJM Solutions, LLC an economic consulting firm specializing in supplier diversity and minority business development. From 2018 to 2021, Dr. McKinney was the Carlton Highsmith Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Director of the People’s United Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Quinnipiac University School of Business. At Quinnipiac, Dr. McKinney was responsible for teaching entrepreneurship and being a catalyst for entrepreneurship on campus with students, teachers, staff, and the business community.
From 1983-1987, Dr. McKinney taught health economics, statistics, and microeconomics as a tenure-track assistant professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Advanced Studies in Social Policy. In 1987, he became a full-time assistant professor at the University of Connecticut, School of Business. At UConn, Dr. McKinney taught managerial economics, forecasting, and healthcare economics in the MBA and Executive MBA programs. During his academic career, Dr. McKinney also pursued entrepreneurship. He started a successful wholesale gourmet coffee company in New Haven, CT, as well as a second company based on his own U.S. patent for a system of dispensing whole bean coffee in a retail environment.
In 2001, Dr. McKinney became president and chief executive officer of the Connecticut Minority Supplier Development Council (CMSDC), one of the smaller regional affiliates of the National Minority Supplier Development Council. Dr. McKinney and his team built the CMSDC into one of the largest councils in the network. During his tenure, the CMSDC became the Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council. While at CMSDC, Dr. McKinney executed two non-profit acquisitions, raised millions of dollars in public and private foundation support, and grew the Council’s staff from three to 16 full-time employees.
He left CMSDC to serve as managing director of minority business programs at the Tuck School of Business. Dr. McKinney has served in leadership positions for numerous boards, including Gateway Community College Foundation, Yale New Haven Health Care’s Bridgeport Hospital, The American Automobile Association of Connecticut, Habitat for Humanity, The Community’s Bank, and The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Community Advisory Committee.
Dr. McKinney earned a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in economics from Yale Graduate School of Economics. While pursuing his Ph.D., Dr. McKinney spent two summers at the Rand Corporation on domestic economic policy and one year on the White House Council of Economic Advisers.