During its annual retreat in late July, the North Carolina A&T State University Board of Trustees welcomed four new members: Jasmine Amaniampong, Gina Loften, Gregg Lowe and Jini Thornton – who, of course, all happily accepted the oath of office delivered by trustee Judge Paul Jones.
The 13-member board includes eight members elected by the UNC Board of Governors, four appointed by the NC General Assembly and one student member who gets a seat by virtue of being the university’s student body president.
The board acts as an advisor to the UNC Board of Governors on matters pertaining to NC A&T SU and to the university’s chancellor on matters regarding to the management and development of the school.
Jasmine Amaniampong (pictured above) gets the honor this year of representing her classmates on the university’s Board of Trustees. A senior economics honors student – and a Cheatham-White Scholar (a fully funded four-year scholarship for well-rounded applicants) – Amaniampong is the student government association president for the 2023-2024 academic year. She is thereby an ex-officio member of the board.
According to a press release from the university announcing the new members, Amaniampong plans to use her knowledge and experience “to impact nonprofits and the educational system through public policy.”
She’s been highly involved in campus activities in the past, including serving with the African Aggies Coalition and the Office of Leadership and Civic Engagement. During the upcoming school year, she hopes to “unite the A&T community” through her role as student body president.
The board welcomed other new members as well.
Loften is a Fortune 100 board director who recently retired as the chief technology officer for Microsoft US.
Loftin has worked on mergers and acquisitions among other projects for Microsoft. She has also held senior executive positions for IBM, including jobs in research and development, sales and consulting.
In addition, she’s an officer on the board of Foursquare and Modernizing Medicine.
She knows the school well already. She’s an A&T alumna who earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.
Lowe, another new member, is president and CEO of semiconductor company Wolfspeed, Inc.
Before that, he was president and CEO of Freescale Semiconductor – a $5 billion global company that provides products to automotive and communications markets among others.
His career includes 28 years at Texas Instruments as senior vice president and the leader of the analog business.
Lowe holds a BS degree in electrical engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and completed the executive program at Stanford University.
Thornton is the founder and CEO of Envision Business Management Group, that provides accounting and money management services for clients in the entertainment industry. Her client list includes producers, songwriters, actors, record labels, and talent management companies.
She is the financial expert on the nationally syndicated Rickey Smiley Morning Show and Willie Moore, Jr. Show as well as the founder of Thank Me Later, an online financial education platform focused on helping black women master their finances.
Thornton received an MS degree in taxation from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BS in accounting from NC A&T.
The official stated duty of the Board of Trustees is “to promote the sound development of the university with the functions prescribed for it, helping it to serve the people of the state in a way that will complement the activities of the other institutions and enable it to perform at a high level of excellence in every area of endeavor.”
