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2025 ABL CEO LUNCHEON AWARD PRESENTERSBIOSBIOSReverend Ken L. JelksPastorSaint Stephen MissionaryBaptist ChurchWilliam PatePresident & CEO Atlanta Convention andVisitors BureauEric PinckneyPrincipalIntegral GroupThe HonorableMichael ThurmondFormer CEO DeKalb County

Reverend Ken L. Jelks Rev. Ken L. Jelks currently serves as the seventh Pastor of the St. Stephen Missionary Baptist Church in East Point, Ga. A native Atlantan, Jelks accepted Christ at the age of 12 and was reared at the Wheat Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, under the Pastorates of the late Rev. Dr. William Holmes Borders, Sr., and Rev. Dr. Michael N. Harris. He later joined, served, and was further reared at the Antioch Baptist Church North under the Pastorate of the late Reverend Dr. Cameron M. Alexander, and was subsequently licensed and ordained by the Antioch Baptist Church North under Dr. Alexander in 2004 & 2013, respectively. Jelks served as Senior Pastor of the Mt. Tabor Baptist Church in Columbus, Georgia for nearly 12 years, and during his tenure led the church in the acquisition of two properties dedicated to outreach, the integration of multi-media and social – media ministries, and led the church in a quarter million-dollar church renovation project, completed with no remaining debt during the 2019-2020 pandemic. He served as Vice Moderator for the Mt. Calvary Baptist Association in Columbus, Georgia, and was awarded the Columbus American Red Cross Hometown Hero Award for helping to facilitate the rescue and placement of community families left homeless amidst a re that destroyed their neighborhood housing complex homes. Jelks’ academic preparation includes undergraduate study at Bethune-Cookman College, 1989-1990, transferring to Clark Atlanta University 1991-1995 (B.A. Business Administration), The Interdenominational Theological Center (Certicate of Theology) in 2009, and Carver Bible College (B.A. in Biblical Studies) in 2012. Pastor Jelks is currently working toward the Master of Divinity Degree at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University to complete the M.Div. program work that began at the Morehouse School of Religion (Interdenominational Theological Center). While the majority of Jelks’ professional background is steeped in Media Broadcasting per earlier work with the Collegiate Broadcasting Group, Inc. under his father—pioneer broadcaster, Lo Jelks; he enjoyed a valuable stint of social/human services training while working for the Atlanta Urban League for several years in housing, and then transitioned back into broadcasting at Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasters, Inc. (AIB-TV) as Manager of Sales and Marketing. In addition to his work in full-time ministry, Pastor Jelks serves as Chaplain for the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management. Jelks is the son of Lo Jelks and Jane Jelks Jones; he is married to Na’Taki Osborne Jelks, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at her Alma Mater - Spelman College, and they are the proud parents of 15-year-old Kenyatta Jelks, Jr., a 10th grader at Maynard Jackson High School in Atlanta, Georgia. A socially conscious preacher, Jelks is a passionate and progressive proclaimer of the gospel.

William Pate President and CEO Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau As president and CEO of Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB), William Pate is responsible for maintaining tourism as one of the city's top economic drivers. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry brought an estimated 57 million visitors annually to metro Atlanta, generating $16 billion in visitor spending and sustaining approximately 300,000 jobs. A native of Atlanta, Pate is respected locally for his leadership and marketing expertise. He is an appointed member of the Georgia Tourism Foundation, charged with increasing the state’s position as a destination for travel. In 2022, he was named one of Atlanta’s 500 most powerful leaders by Atlanta Magazine. American Marketing Association’s Atlanta chapter awarded him its lifetime achievement award in 2020. Atlanta Business League previously named him Herman J. Russell CEO of the Year. Atlanta Business Chronicle honored Pate multiple times as one of Atlanta's 50 most admired CEOs and named him to its 100 most influential Atlantans list every year since 2009. He is a past honoree of Atlanta Magazine’s most influential leaders in Atlanta and Georgia Trend magazine’s Notable Georgians A prominent leader in the nation’s hospitality industry, Pate is a past chair of the board of directors of U.S. Travel Association and Destinations International. Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International honored him as one of the top 25 most extraordinary minds in sales and marketing, and he received the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association award of appreciation for his commitment to diversity and inclusion within the travel industry. Pate’s involvement in Atlanta’s sports industry includes serving on the boards of Atlanta Sports Council, Cricket Celebration Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame. He served as vice president of the Atlanta Football Host Committee which managed the College Football Playoff National Championship, board member for the Atlanta Super Bowl Host Committee for Super Bowl LIII and vice chairman of the Atlanta Basketball Host Committee, which oversaw planning for the 2020 NCAA Men’s Final Four. Atlanta Business Chronicle named him one of Georgia's 30 most influential sports business figures of 2020. Pate is very active in the Atlanta community as a member of the Rotary Club of Atlanta, while also serving on the board of directors for Central Atlanta Progress, First Tee Atlanta, Jack and Jill Late Stage Cancer Foundation, Metro Atlanta Chamber and Woodruff Arts Center. He is on the Board of Councilors of The Carter Center, Children’s Museum of Atlanta advisory board and the industry advisory board for Georgia State University’s Cecil B. Day School of Hospitality Administration. Prior to joining ACVB, Pate served as president of Career Sports & Entertainment, a national sports marketing and representation firm. He is the former chief marketing officer of BellSouth, one of the world's largest communications companies. Prior to joining BellSouth, Pate supervised domestic and international advertising and communications at MCI during the telecom ad wars of the 1990s. Pate attended Georgia State University where he received his undergraduate degree in journalism and his graduate degree in communications.

Eric Pinckney Bio Eric Pinckney is a legacy principal for the Integral Group, an Atlanta-based real estate development and investment management firm. Eric has been with the firm for almost 30 years. Eric came to Atlanta as a student studying Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. It was in that capacity he found his calling as someone who is responsible for the development of sustainable communities. It started when Pinckney volunteered to help families at a nearby public housing project called Techwood Homes in 1980 and urged residents to reject offers from real estate developers. His personal experience in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston had showed him that community disruption often followed gentrification. He believed the best way to build sustainable African American communities was to maintain the sense of family and support that he had experienced growing up in a segregated Massachusetts community. But after meeting Egbert Perry, Integral’s Chairman & CEO, Pinckney learned that real estate development could recreate the economic diversity that had existed before the age of racial integration. He then changed his educational focus to make his passion for building functioning communities into a profession. He earned a master’s in City Planning from Georgia’s Institute of Technology. Integral hired him as a scheduling consultant, and he was soon promoted to a Project Manager. Eric held that position with the company when the Olympics came to town in 1996. Integral played a significant part in implementing Atlanta housing legacy program for that historic event. Pinckney returned to Boston for a short period before being called back to the Integral Group where he was given development responsibilities for major projects in Richmond, VA., Baltimore, MD., Washington, DC, Memphis, TN and Denver, CO. By 2002, he was the Vice President of Operations for Integral’s development division. He held that position for ten years. He was also beginning to see how his dream of creating sustainable neighborhoods could become a reality for families and businesses all over the country. Eric credits mentorship by Egbert Perry, Renee Glover, former President & CEO of the Atlanta Housing Authority, and Dr. Norman Johnson, former special assistant to former President Patrick Crecine at Georgia Tech, for helping him and Integral create some of the most successful and transformative residential developments in the nation. Today Pinckney is the principal in charge of the Microsoft community development efforts located on its 90-acre, Atlanta Beltline adjacent site near the Bankhead MARTA Station.

CEO, Michael Thurmond DeKalb County Michael L. Thurmond won a landslide victory in 2016 to become chief executive oicer of DeKalb County, one of the most diverse counties in the Southeast. Since his January 1, 2017 swearing-in, Thurmond’s primary mission is restoring trust in county government. His other priorities include adopting a balanced budget, ensuring accurate water bills, removing blight, oering summer youth employment, improving employee compensation, and fullling the federal/state sewer consent agreement. Thurmond, a former member of the Georgia General Assembly and the rst African American elected to a statewide oice without prior appointment is widely regarded as a “turnaround expert” after fundamentally transforming the culture and enhancing operations of complex organizations such as the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, the Georgia Department of Labor and the DeKalb County School District. As superintendent of DeKalb schools, Thurmond is credited with stabilizing the system during a governance crisis, upgrading its threatened accreditation, eliminating a multimillion-dollar decit, and improving student academic performance and graduation rates. Thurmond was raised as a sharecropper's son in Clarke County, Georgia. He graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and religion from Paine College and later earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of South Carolina’s School of Law. He also completed the Political Executives program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1986, he became the rst African American elected to the Georgia General Assembly from Clarke County since Reconstruction. During his legislative tenure, Thurmond authored major legislation that provided more than $250 million in tax relief to Georgia's senior citizens and working families. Thurmond received a gubernatorial appointment to lead the state Division of Family and Children Services and direct Georgia's historic transition from welfare to work. He created the innovative Work First program, which helped more than 90,000 welfare-dependent Georgia families move from dependence into the workforce. In 1997, Thurmond became a distinguished lecturer at the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government. The following year, he was elected Georgia labor commissioner. During his three terms as labor commissioner, Thurmond’s most signicant achievement was constructing a $20 million school for children with disabilities at the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute. Thurmond’s latest book, Freedom: Georgia’s Antislavery Heritage, 1733-1865, was awarded the Georgia Historical Society’s Lilla Hawes Ward. In 2004, The Georgia Center for the Book listed Freedom as one of The 25 Books All Georgians Should Read. He serves on the University of Georgia Libraries Board of Visitors. He is married to Zola Fletcher Thurmond, and they have one daughter, Mikaya.