Thurgood Marshall College Fund president spoke at Fortune’s Workplace Innovation Summit

June 1, 2026

The Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) was well represented at the recent Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit in Atlanta.  

Dr. Harry L. Williams, president & CEO of TMCF, was a panelist at the conference for a session about AI, entry-level jobs and the new frontier of jobs. 

Other panelists included Cristina Mancini, CEO of Black Girls Code; Debbie Dyson, CEO of SkillsRight; and Becky Schmidt, chief people officer at PepsiCo. The panel was moderated by Fortune‘s head of video, Adam Banicki. 

During the session, Dr. Williams indicated that the anxiety is palpable on campus. 

“Students are scared. And they’re nervous with AI, because we don’t know where it’s going,” he said on the panel. 

Dr. Williams also discussed how students use AI to prepare for job interviews, the power of internships and TMCF’s newly developed Place-Based Trainings.  

“We spent three days on the campus literally training with corporations and getting them ready for… internships, apprenticeships so that when they graduate they can go straight to work,” Dr. Williams said in the panel. 

Dr. Williams closed the panel by talking about the value of continuous improvement, encouraging students to find ways to make themselves better each day. 
A full recap of the panel is available at Fortune.

Photo courtesy of Fortune

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