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For its 30th annual conference, the African-American Student Union at Harvard Business School officially changed the name of the event to the Annual H. Naylor Fitzhugh Conference, honoring one of the School's first African-American alumni and his lifetime of achievement.
H. Naylor Fitzhugh's legacy is exemplified through his many achievements, which began at the age of sixteen when he won a scholarship to Harvard College and became one of only four African-Americans in a class of 1,000.
Fitzhugh, undaunted by the fact that he was forced to live outside the dorms because of his race, thrived at Harvard and graduated with honors in 1931. While his studies had been predominantly in the sciences, prosperity in a summer sales job prompted him to accept the challenge of earning an MBA at Harvard Business School in 1933, even though he was one of the first blacks to do so. Though he excelled in his studies at HBS, he was once again faced with the prejudices of the times. Upon receipt of his degree he was shunned by recruiters, who actively pursued his classmates.
Fitzhugh returned to his native Washington, D.C., and became an independent salesman, working for several printing firms serving the black community. He also became a leader in a movement to change the policies of major companies that did business in black neighborhoods, which refused to hire the residents as workers, by helping to establish the New Negro Alliance. His involvement with the Alliance not only began his ongoing involvement as a community activist, but also served as his entree into the educational sector when a fellow volunteer offered him the opportunity to teach a business course at Howard University.
While initially uninterested in a teaching career, Fitzhugh became engrossed in his experience at Howard, which stretched into the next three decades and left a legendary mark on the school and its business curriculum. With only a two-year break to further his own studies in marketing at Columbia School of Business, Fitzhugh worked diligently to build Howard's business program by instituting a marketing department, advising a number of business and marketing clubs, and organizing the school's Small Business Center.
Fitzhugh immensely enjoyed the role he played at Howard in bringing young black people into the business spectrum. But in 1965, one of the many corporate and civic job offers to cross his desk caught his eye—a marketing position at Pepsi-Cola that would ultimately allow him to develop the first marketing efforts to target African-Americans. Fitzhugh made history in this position not only by establishing the black community as a lucrative mass market but also by creating the concept of target marketing in corporate America. His mentoring continued throughout his corporate career at Pepsi, both informally and through "Learn and Earn," the award-winning educational program he developed with the Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) that introduces high school students to business through hands-on economic education.
Fitzhugh retired from Pepsi in 1974, but continued to remain active with the company and within the community for many years. He was recognized for his achievements with a number of awards, including honorary doctoral degrees from Howard and Virginia State University; the National Black MBA Association's H. Naylor Fitzhugh Award of Relevance (which recognized him and those who followed for their business accomplishments and for remembering and giving back to those who helped along the way); Excel Magazine's 1986 Man of the Year; HBS's 1987 Alumni Distinguished Service Award; and in 1990, the Executive Leadership Council Heritage Award for lifelong contributions to African-American business advancement.
He died in 1992.
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