(TOWSON – September 10, 2023) – Be sure to RSVP for Black Wall Street TOWSON on Thursday, September 21, 2023, 6 to 8 pm, at Mo’s Seafood located at 1528 E. Joppa Rd. The event will feature the Joe Manns Black Wall Street Awards.
RSVP to BlackWallStreetTOWSON.eventbrite.com.
Honorees include Robert “Bob” Ingram, the Founder of Urban Health Report and VP of Strategic Programs and initiatives at Pod Digital Media.
Healthcare and Corporate Diversity & Inclusion Thought Leader Robert “Bob” Ingram, the Founder of the Urban Health Report, a digital health and wellness information platform devoted to eradicating healthcare disparities among Blacks and Indigenous Persons of Color, is a leading executive in healthcare, publishing, multicultural marketing, advertising, and corporate diversity, and inclusion circles.
He started his career at US Black Engineer & Hispanic Engineer Magazines where he quickly rose to Associate Publisher developing an expertise in the recruitment of Black and Latinx STEM talent. Though grateful to those who brought him into the diversity and inclusion career and recruitment area of publishing and advertising, Bob yearned to be independent.
Out of the diversity technology recruitment space, Bob went out on his own as a publisher of popular and industry-driven healthcare publications. During the Bill and Hillary Clinton push for universal healthcare in the mid-90s, Bob made a successful foray into healthcare as publisher of both The Urban Health Report magazine and Healthcare Network 2000 monthly news journal.
These thriving publications covered healthcare news, trends, issues, careers, and top executives. Among his clients and supporters then were The Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins Medicine, University of Maryland Medical Center, Washington Hospital Center, Bon Secours Health System, and Children’s National Health System. As a strategic partner of the National Association of Health Services Executives (NAHSE), Bob became an expert in the area of health disparities in the African-American community as well as cultivated a broad network of the Top Blacks in Healthcare throughout America.
Eventually, Bob sold his publishing interests and moved back to the STEM recruitment field with the nation’s largest student-run organization, the National Society of Black Engineers. While at NSBE, Bob became the Publisher of NSBE publications and ultimately Chief Development Officer (Fundraiser) and Chair of their Board of Corporate Affiliates. Among the numerous NSBE Corporate Affiliates were Eli Lilly, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, GE, GM, P&G, Microsoft, Intel, Exxon, Boeing, Chevron, Dell, CIA, and 3M. While at NSBE Bob helped spearhead the Annual NSBE 50 program of the most preferred employers in conjunction with the Gallup organization. Bob also conceived, founded, and produced the Golden Torch Awards which has become NSBE’s most prestigious corporate-driven program at its annual national convention.
Staying abreast of publishing and advertising trends and after several years, Bob went out on his own and soon was recruited by the Tribune Company as its first and only National Help Wanted Director. This was a direct response to the Dot-Com threat posed to the newspaper industry by Monster.com. While at Tribune and at the behest of Vibe Magazine founder Keith Clinkscales, Bob was recruited to New York and Madison Avenue to launch a group of Vanguarde Media properties that included Savoy Magazine. Bob went on to become the rainmaker at Savoy Magazine and ultimately launched and became publisher of the new and trendsetting career publication and brand extension Savoy Professional Magazine.
Earl and Butch Graves of Black Enterprise Magazine personally recruited Bob in 2004 to be their National Director of Diversity and soon thereafter he launched their historic 1st Annual Black Enterprise Top Companies for Diversity Issue. While at Black Enterprise, Bob also independently co-founded the World Diversity Leadership Summit (WDLS) in Prague, Czech Republic. WDLS a truly disruptive global confab had succeeding annual events in Prague again and then Harvard, the United Nations, Vienna, the World Bank, the US Open, and the New York Stock Exchange.
Sandwiched between successful national and global experiences at Black Enterprise and WDLS, Bob designed and hosted a timely, groundbreaking one-day event Bringing Diversity to Madison Avenue at the Harvard Club in New York City. Over 25 Madison Avenue-based advertising agencies were brought together to address and find solutions to issues of inclusion in their industry that were brought out in a public legal action executed by New York’s City Council in 2005.
Among his many accomplishments, Bob is proud to have been chosen by the Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM) as one of America’s Top 100 Diversity & Inclusion Thought Leaders each of the only 2 times the recognition was bestowed. Bob has continued to add value as a productive consultant to the industry with key organizations and brands like Diversity Best Practices/Working Mother Magazine, Uptown Media Ventures, and Vibe Magazine.
From the spring of 2017 to 2020, Bob continued as a mainstay contributor and innovator as the Sr. Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and programs at BlackDoctor.org. (BDO). BDO is a leading source of health and wellness information for African Americans. While at BDO Bob developed and founded the wildly successful Top Blacks in Healthcare program that for almost a decade has recognized some of the healthcare industry’s leading executives and caregivers. Now at the Urban Health Report, Bob has and continues to work with such stalwart brands as Janssen, Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly, Takeda, Novartis, Otsuka, Walgreens, Walmart, Toyota, Ford, Colgate Palmolive, AT&T and Wells Fargo. He is presently launching the Urban Health Report during Black History Month in February 2022 with a historic list branded the Holistic Health 100 (HH 100).
