Alonzo L McDonald

McDonald is currently Chairman and CEO of Avenir Group, Inc., a private development bank and investor group that he founded in 1983. Mr. McDonald was the Founding Chairman of The Trinity Forum, and presently serves as a Senior Fellow and trustee emeritus. Mr. McDonald was President and Vice Chairman of the Bendix Corporation from 1981 to 1983. Alonzo L. McDonald Jr., who lives in Michigan, attended Emory, was briefly a journalist, then was the advertising and promotion manager for “Howdy Doody.” In 1952 he ghost-wrote the column Jackie Robinson syndicated after each of the seven World Series games. He worked for McKinsey, the consulting firm, retiring in 1977 as managing director. Then he began “buying some small companies.” Having largely ignored religion, Mr. McDonald joined the Episcopal Church late in life. In the 1990s he became friends with Doug Coe, leader of the Family, and some years gave “no more than five or six thousand dollars” to Mr. Coe’s group, recently famous for having adulterous members like Senator John Ensign of Nevada and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Two years ago, at 79, Mr. McDonald became a Roman Catholic. Having largely disinherited his four children (“I don’t want my good fortune to influence their lives”), in 1989 Mr. McDonald put his wealth into the McDonald Agape Foundation, a family-run philanthropy. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed him Deputy Special Representative for Trade Negotiations with the rank of Ambassador. In 1979, he was named Assistant to the President of the United States and White House Staff Director of the Carter Administration. Mr. McDonald joined the faculty of the Harvard Business School in 1981, and from 1983 until 1987 he served as a Senior Counselor to the Dean, developing and co-moderating their quarterly Senior Executive Seminar for chief executive officers. McDonald was born August 5, 1928, in Atlanta, Ga. He received an A.B. from Emory University in 1948 and an M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1956. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1950 to 1952. He worked with the Air Conditioning Division of Westinghouse Electric Corp., from 1956 to 1960, rising from assistant to the sales manager to Western Zone manager, based in St. Louis. Since 1960 he has been with McKinsey & Co., Inc., in London, Zurich, Paris, and New York. He was principal in the London office, managing principal in the Zurich office, and managing director of the Paris office. McDonald became managing director of the firm in 1973 and assumed the additional function as director of the New York office in 1976. From 1948 to 1950, McDonald was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal. McDonald is: trustee, Committee for Economic Development; chairman, subcommittee on Role of Government Intervention in the Economy; member, Council on Foreign Relations; trustee and member of executive committee, U.S. Council of the International Chamber of Commerce; member, Advisory Council on Japan-U.S. Economic Relations; member, The Economic Club of New York; member, Center for Inter-American Relations; chairman, board of directors, Harvard Business School Club of Greater New York; member, Visiting Committee on Administration, Harvard University; director, The French-American Foundation; and warden at St. Joseph of Arimathea Episcopal Church (Elmsford, N.Y.).