GroupM Ceo Kirk Mcdonald to Be Honored at Largest Black Entrepreneurship Summit

GroupM North America CEO Kirk McDonald will be commemorated at the Black Enterprise’s 2022 Black Men Xcel summit, the nation’s No. 1 conference focused on celebrating and refining Black men with the tools to advance professional development from entry-level management to C-suite executive.

The summit is set for October 12 through 14 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.

Leading more than 6,000 people dedicated to the next era of media where advertising better serves people, the City College of New York graduate is a key businessman in GroupM’s strategy to provide more powerful and effective solutions for customers through technology-enabled solutions.

McDonald had quite the experience before leading GroupM. He served as the chief marketing officer and chief business officer at Xandr, spending almost a decade at CNet and Time Inc. Right now, GroupM currently has more than $17.6 billion in media investment billings around the U.S. and Canada.

For McDonald, there is plenty to believe in when It comes to GroupM: He is convinced that the company can create real changes across the industry to find a new balance of making advertising less interruptive and a valued part of media.

The business executive already has earned numerous awards because of his noteworthy career, including Ebony Magazine’s Power 100 list in 2018, Adweek’s 2014 “12 Stars of Ad Tech Who are Building the Future of the Industry Right Now” list and Business Insider’s 2014 “The 46 Most Important African-Americans in Technology” list.

And the CEO is the founding member of the Black Executive CMO alliance (BECA), while currently serving on the Board of Directors for Elanco. He is also a member of the Executive Leadership Council (ELC).

The three-day leadership and career development conference will host more than 700 executive men of color who will have the chance to network with other CEOs, boardroom executives and other representatives of Fortune 500 companies.

The BMX Summit is slated to feature roundtable discussions on Black men in business, entrepreneurship, technology, among other pertinent topics.

Notable figures attending the Black Enterprise BMX Summit include civil rights attorney Ben Crump, mental health expert Jay Barnett, journalist Ed Gordon and OneTen CEO Maurice Jones.

Tickets are available at www.blackenterprise.com/bmx2022/register/.