Lillian Lincoln

Lillian Lincoln Lambert is an American businesswoman, and the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Business School (HBS), where she was one of the co-founders of the African-American Student Union. She graduated in 1969 and received the W. E. B. Du Bois award. After holding down a number of different jobs she started her own building services company, Centennial One, in 1976. After she sold that, she engaged in public speaking and published a memoir.

Biography

Early life and education Lambert grew up in Ballsville, Virginia, fifty miles west of Richmond. She was the daughter of a teacher and a farmer and was raised on a Powhatan County farm. Growing up, she did chores in the fields, but "had a thirst for knowledge" and read in her spare time. Over the course of two years, AASU increased the number of African-American students sevenfold, increased financial aid for African-American students and provided career development opportunities. The company offered a range of services from carpet cleaning to landscaping. Her roster of clients included ABC News, Dulles Airport, Hewlett-Packard, NationsBank, Northrop Grumman and Arthur D. Little. In 1995, she was the first woman to serve as president of an international association of building service contractors.

Lambert sold Centennial One in 2001 and began a successful speaking career, and wrote a book about her experiences, The Road to Someplace Better: From the Segregated South to Harvard Business School and Beyond (published by Wiley, 2010).

Honors In 2003, Harvard Business School awarded Lambert the Alumni Achievement Award, the highest award bestowed on its alumni. The award recognizes recipients for "the contributions they made to their companies and communities, while upholding the highest standards and values in everything they do." In 2010, Lambert was inducted into Enterprise Women Magazine 's Enterprising Women Hall of Fame. Lambert sits on the Board of Visitors at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Board of Directors for Harvard Business School African-American Alumni Association.