President and Chief Executive Officer
The INROADS National Board of Directors announced Forest T. Harper as the next President and CEO of INROADS, the nation’s largest non-profit source of salaried corporate internships and corporate and community leadership development for outstanding students from diverse backgrounds. With more than 33 years of corporate and community experience, Forest is a proven leader dedicated to community health advocacy, leadership and talent pipeline development, and organizational outreach.
Prior to joining INROADS, Forest spent 28 years at Pfizer. He began his career at Pfizer as a sales representative eventually holding numerous leadership positions from Vice-Presidential positions in sales to his last role where he led Capability Development in Worldwide Public Affairs & Policy. Throughout his career, he successfully designed and implemented new sales product and account strategies, led a number of major organizational initiatives, and achieved substantial business results. Harper was also instrumental in spearheading community-based initiatives targeted to underinsured populations and was the architect of multiple public/private partnerships and alliances involved in over 25,000 community-based organizations, including the Pfizer Share Card and Community Health Advocacy.
In addition to his leadership roles at Pfizer, Harper served as the first President of the Pfizer African-American Leadership Network (PAALN) and a member of Pfizer’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Committee. He was also a pioneer in creating and launching undergraduate internship programs with schools such as Florida A&M University’s School of Business and Industry and Morgan State University’s C.A.P (Corporate Alliance Program) at the Earl Graves School of Business, his alma mater.
Forest began his career with Pfizer after serving for six years in the United States Army, 82nd Airborne Division, achieving the rank of Captain. He is a member of the Executive Leadership Council (ELC), an independent, non-profit corporation of senior African-American executives at Fortune 500 companies, as well as, the National Society of Pershing Rifles Alumni Association (NSPRAA). His leadership bandwidth spans from former Secretary and member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees for the National Arthritis Foundation to Board of Directors member for the National Council for the Aging (NCOA).
Harper holds a B.A. in Social Work from Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD and attended an Executive Leadership Training at Harvard Business School in Boston, MA. A native of Fort Pierce, Florida, he and his family currently reside in Atlanta, Georgia.