Board of directors

Tony Kelly | President:

Tony Kelly is a doctoral student at George Fox University in the DBA program and is on track to graduate in 2022. Tony is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree. He served six years of active duty as a nuclear launch officer. He is a former high-tech industry executive with vast experience in successfully managing international sales, operations, and marketing organizations. Tony has an MBA in Marketing and served on the Board of Directors for Young Entrepreneurs Business Week (YEBW) for 5 years, a nonprofit organization building the next generation of business leaders. Tony is also co-owner and co-founder of Keller Williams Realty Portland Premiere, helping grow the office from four agents to 250 agents. Tony has been featured in 7 HGTV episodes, including "House Hunters".

In the spring of 2020, Tony read a disconcerting study produced by NAR regarding homeownership.  The study noted that African American homeownership was at its lowest level since 1969.  As an African American and a Realtor, Tony was greatly disturbed by this information and motivated to be part of the solution in correcting this nefarious imbalance.  The results of the study, combined with research that he came across during his doctoral studies regarding systemic racial inequities faced by people of color seeking promotion attainment in corporate America, helped him understand the multiple layers of discrimination that have acted as intentional and unintentional barriers for African Americans.  In Oregon, the damage caused by early 20^th century “Redlining laws,” created by the Portland Real Estate Board’s Code of Ethics, has created a generational bias in which cultural assumptions regarding home ownership continue to persist and therefore serve as an invisible barrier today. 

During his research, Tony discovered that the path to breaking through corporate ceilings for people of color (one aspect of his dissertation) begins with education, mentoring, and access to formal and informal networks.  Homeownership often serves as the financial catalyst for non-POCs, enabling them to afford higher education tuition.  The wealth created through home equity allows parents to pay for college tuition, whereas non-homeowners lack the ability to tap into the equity of their residence.  Home equity eventually becomes generational wealth that gets based down through inheritance.  This wealth allows current generations to enroll their children in extracurricular networking activities that not only allow them to get into better higher education but also serve to create skillsets that increase their networking acumen in the future.  While the barriers that prevent people of color from promotional attainment in corporate America cannot be solved through home ownership, home ownership can help address the unique barriers faced by people of color.