CEO of American Red Cross in Greater New York Vikki Pryor will headline event
By ALLISON KENNEDY
akennedy@ledger-enquirer.com
Vikki Pryor’s grandmother, who had a third grade education, gave everything she had. It might not have been much, materially, but she gave it, said Pryor. Originally a domestic worker, Marie Nesbitt had her first and only child at age 14. That was Vikki’s mother.
Nesbitt eventually left her native South and made her way to Chicago to pursue other work.
“One of the extraordinary things about her was how many people she helped in her life,” Vikki Pryor, head of the American Red Cross in Greater New York, said in a recent interview. “My grandmother constantly took in people and on top of that they never left her house empty-handed.” Nesbitt often gave away household items she collected in her basement, and plates of food she made in anticipation of visitors.
“I can’t count the number of people she helped,” Pryor said.
Voted one of the 50 most powerful women in New York by Crains New York magazine in 2009, Pryor will be in Columbus Oct. 20 to lead the 2011 Servant Leadership Conference at the Columbus Convention & Trade Center. Sponsored by the Center for Servant Leadership at the Pastoral Institute, this year’s theme is “Strategic Servant Leadership: Maximizing Resources.”
Pryor was part of a panel during the same conference here two years ago and was invited back as the keynote speaker.
The American Red Cross in Greater New York named Pryor its new chief executive officer last fall. (Her last day is Oct. 17, and she will pursue other opportunities.)
Before the Red Cross, she was president and chief executive officer of SBLI USA Mutual Life Insurance Company in New York for 11 years. The first African-American woman to head a major life insurance company in the U.S., she moved the 71-year old company into a national provider of financial services to underserved markets and audiences, a strategy resulting in the reversal of a 10-year business decline and a $200 million increase in assets.
The company now has more than $16.7 billion of insurance in force, 300,000 customers and has been twice cited as one of the 50 best places to work in New York City, according to Pryor’s bio.
Pryor has a law degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to her business career, she spent eight years as a trial attorney with the Office of the Chief Counsel for the IRS in Chicago. She was then recruited to Allstate Life Insurance, and moved into various senior level positions within the insurance industry, working for other companies including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Oxford Health.
As CEO of the country’s largest Red Cross chapter, Pryor leads the organization in providing disaster relief and emergency preparedness services and lifesaving training to New York City, Rockland, Sullivan, Orange and Putnam Counties, totaling 9.2 million people. The chapter responds to an average of seven disasters a day, helping up to 100,000 people each year affected by these incidents with their basic needs: food, water, shelter, clothing and emotional support.
In recent months, she and her chapter had their hands full. Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee caused several billions in damage in New York alone.
Her late grandmother taught her how to lead by serving -- not so much by telling people how to treat people but actually doing it herself.
“My mantra is, ‘Thrive where you are,’ ” Pryor said. “Sometimes we think we need to be someplace else to make a difference, but it’s not about just making it or getting by. We have some skewed beliefs about that. ... A person has to take stock: ‘What do I need to do to thrive?’ Live the purpose that God has for you.
“My view is based on Jesus’ model. It’s about individual actions that make a difference. We are divinely designed to do a special work. ... If every person in the world would help someone else, we wouldn’t have any problems at all. That’s not impossible. Just imagine a world where everyone made a habit of checking on their neighbors.”
