Name:		Mr. Roland Warren
		Month:		June 2009
		Schools:		Princeton BA 1983 University of Pennsylvania Wharton School MBA 1996
		Organization:		National Fatherhood Initiative
		Title:		President

From the first time he heard about the National Fatherhood Initiative, Roland C. Warren knew this was an organization he wanted to be involved with. But, even after joining the organization's Board of Directors in 1998, he could not have imagined that just over three years later, he would be working to promote responsible fatherhood fulltime.

Fatherhood is an issue that Roland cares about deeply. As President of the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI), Roland is dedicated to NFI's mission of improving the well-being of children by increasing the proportion of children that are raised with involved, responsible, and committed fathers.

Under Roland's direction, NFI works to accomplish its mission through a variety of activities, ranging from its award-winning public education campaign, which generated over $500 million in donated media, to its cutting-edge resources and programming. Through Roland's leadership, the organization has quickly become one of the nation's leading providers of fatherhood resources to communities, schools, prisons, hospitals, businesses, the military, and churches. FatherSOURCETM, a national fatherhood resource center run by NFI, now offers the most extensive assortment of specialized fatherhood resources in the world. Roland has played a key role in helping the organization establish strategic partnerships with businesses, government, and non-profit organizations across the country.

Roland has represented NFI at nationwide events and on national television, including appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, CNN, C-SPAN, Dateline NBC, Fox News Channel, and Black Entertainment Television, and interviews with major radio and newspaper outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, O Magazine, Ebony, Sports Illustrated, Christianity Today, Essence, the Tavis Smiley Show, and Janet Parshall's America. Roland is frequently called on to speak to the benefits of father involvement and the detriments of father absence.

Roland brings to the National Fatherhood Initiative almost two decades of experience in the business world and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to his position at NFI, Roland worked for Goldman, Sachs and Co., a leading global investment banking firm, where he managed investments for the firm's select group of high net worth clients, and served as a liaison to the firm's asset management and investment banking groups. He has held management positions for both IBM and PepsiCo. and worked as an associate director of development for his undergraduate alma mater, Princeton University.

A native of Toledo, Ohio, Roland stays active in community and civic activities. He serves on the Fatherhood Task Force of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, on the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for the US Department of Justice, as a board member for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, the Advisory Council for the Ready to Learn Partnership, and on the membership committee for the National PTA. A resident of Germantown, Maryland, Roland is married to Dr. Yvette Lopez-Warren and has two sons, Jamin, a graduate of Harvard University and writer for The Wall Street Journal, and Justin, a graduate of the University of North Carolina who just completed a master's degree program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.