Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY – Susan A. Mboya, Ph.D., founder and executive president of Zawadi Africa Educational Fund and general manager franchise of the Coca-Cola Company will deliver the Provost's Annual Diversity Lecture on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 from 11:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. in the Student Center Theater, Sondra and David S. Mack Student Center, North Campus.

Dr. Mboya will speak on "Diversity in Advertising: Winning with Ethnic Consumers."

Dr. Mboya established the Zawadi Africa Education Fund (www.zawadiafrica.org) to provide scholarships to academically gifted girls from disadvantaged backgrounds from Africa to pursue higher education in the United States. She based the organization on the highly successful Kennedy/Mboya student airlifts of the 1960's, through a partnership with individuals and institutions with an interest in creating leadership. Dr. Mboya has helped establish 25 full-time scholarships from universities including Hofstra University, Miami University (OH), University of Miami (FL), MIT, Yale University, and Xavier University.

A native of Kenya, Dr. Mboya is the daughter of Kenya political leader and activist Tom Mboya, who in 1959 founded a program to bring Kenyan and, later, with support from the Kennedy family foundation, other African students to the United States for leadership training and education. Those students included Barack Obama Sr., President Barack Obama’s father. Tom Mboya was assassinated in 1969.
 
Susan Mboya is the general manager franchise for the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, Ga. In this role she defines strategies and co-ordinates implementation of joint business planning for the Coca-Cola company with its bottlers, deploys plans for new initiatives, creates company and bottler growth and interfaces with customer/commercial partners to deliver product to market. Previously she served as Proctor and Gamble’s marketing director, Global Oral B Power Brushing. Starting her career as a pharmacist, Dr. Mboya joined Proctor and Gamble in 1995.  She joined the Coca Cola Company in 2008.

Dr. Mboya is the recipient of the Corporate Marketing Award for Ebony Magazine’s 5th Annual Outstanding Women in Marketing and Communication Awards and was the first Proctor and Gamble employee to be inducted into the American Advertising Foundation’s Hall of Achievement for young professionals age 40 and younger.

Dr. Mboya received her B.Sc. in Pharmacy from the University of Connecticut and her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Industrial Pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, also is part of Define '09: New Challenges, New Solutions, a year-long series of programs designed to examine the new presidential administration, its policies and initiatives, the challenges we currently face and ways of addressing our country's most pressing issues. For more information please call (516) 463-6505.

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students can choose from more than 145 undergraduate and 160 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business; engineering; communication; education, health and human services;  and honors studies, as well as a School of Law. With a student-faculty ratio of 14-to-1, our professors teach small classes averaging 22 students that emphasize interaction, critical thinking and analysis. Hofstra offers a faculty whose highest priority is teaching excellence. The University also provides excellent facilities with state-of-the-art technology, extensive library resources and internship programs that match students’ interests and abilities with appropriate companies and organizations.  The Hofstra community is driven, dynamic and energetic, helping students find and focus their strengths to prepare them for a successful future.