This Holiday Season, BlackRock Managing Director And Englewood Resident Obie McKenzie Builds an Alliance with Campbell Soup

To Benefit Hungry Families in  Bergen County
Obie McKenzie, Managing Director in BlackRock's Global Client Group and recently appointed Chair to the Board of Directors of WorldofMoney.org, has always been a man of action.  With the holiday season right around the corner, McKenzie felt it was his moral imperative to do something about the plight of the thousands of people in New Jersey who struggle to make ends meet and get food on the table daily.  And so McKenzie reached out to the headquarters of Campbell Soup to ask if it would be possible to buy soup at a discount price to be given away.  

Mckenzie imagined creating a partnership in which the funds for the discounted soup donations would be provided by his own Community Baptist Church of Englewood and anonymous donors, and then given away by the Center For Food Action in New Jersey.  Campbell Soup responded with a suggestion: that if Mr. Mckenzie could find a truck and drive it to their warehouse in Philly, Campbell Soup would gladly fill the truck with soup.  Mckenzie obliged, securing an 18-foot truck capable of carrying 18 thousand pounds of food, or 9 tons.  The truck was filled, nearly to the brim, with 17,500 lbs of Campbell Soup and Mckenzie and his driver returned to the Center For Food Action in New Jersey to unload the soup for the needy.  Thanks to this partnership, borne out of the giving spirit of giving those at Campbell Soup, the Center For Food Action in New Jersey, and the community Baptist church in Englewood, hundreds of local families will receive meals of free soup just in time for the holidays.

No matter how many accolades McKenzie has received, his commitment to giving to those less fortunate remains the driving force behind all of his work.  “I’d like to remind people and other big companies to do their part,” says McKenzie.  “I believe that it is more important to be significant in the lives of others than it is to be successful in personal accomplishments that only build one’s personal resume. It just feels better to do something for somebody else.”

ABOUT OBIE MCKENZIE
Since 1972, Obie L. McKenzie has served the financial services industry in asset management, commercial banking, trade finance, investment banking, corporate treasury and brokerage. Mr. McKenzie is currently a Managing Director at BlackRock in the Global Client Group. BlackRock is the largest publicly traded investment management firm in the United States.  Black Enterprise Magazine recently named Mr. McKenzie One of the Most Powerful Black People on Wall Street

During his career, he has held positions as Managing Director at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (1990-2006) Executive Director at UBS Asset Management and Managing Director at Chase Investors (1987 to  l990). From 1984 to1987, Mr. McKenzie was President and founder of McKenzie & Company, an NASD registered broker dealer.  During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Mr. McKenzie held positions at Citibank, Chemical Bank and Freedom National Bank as a commercial banker. Mr. McKenzie was also Manager of Banking and Pensions at the New York Times in 1975 and Corporate Finance Associate for Morgan Stanley in 1972.

Mr. McKenzie has served as President of the Association of Investment Management Sales Executives (AIMSE); founding board member of the TOIGO Foundation and Associate Advisor to the Texas Association of Public Employees Retirement Systems (TEXPERS). He was also a founding board member of the National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP), where he received the Wall Street Hall of Fame Award in 2001. Mr. McKenzie is a published writer, an accomplished public speaker and vocalist and has been an Expository Bible teacher for over 20 years. Mr. McKenzie graduated from Tennessee State University in 1967 and received his MBA in Finance from Harvard Business School in 1972.
 
About Center for Food Action in NJ
The Center for Food Action in New Jersey (CFA) was founded in 1976 and for over 35 years, it has fulfilled its mission of "preventing hunger and homelessness and improving the lives of individuals and families living in poverty." To this end, CFA provides emergency food packages, rental and utility assistance, counseling, advocacy and other essential services to those in need living in northern New Jersey.

Started by the late singer Harry Chapin and Bill Ayers as World Hunger Year New Jersey, the agency originally focused on the global causes of world hunger but within months of its start, it became evident that people in their own community needed help in order to put food on their tables.  Volunteers immediately began responding to this need. Soon the name was changed to Center for Food Action in New Jersey and the emphasis has since been to provide direct services to local residents. http://cfanj.org/