Kellogg Foundation CEO to Deliver Convocation Address

La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, believes racial healing needs to be rooted in relationship building and shared experience.

That’s why she also believes psychiatrists have a unique role in addressing disparities and building racial reconciliation. She’ll bring that message to the APA Annual Meeting in San Francisco when she delivers this year’s William C. Menninger Memorial Convocation Lecture, titled, “Psychiatric Leadership to Expand Equity and Well-Being.”

Tabron’s address will take place at the Convocation of Distinguished Fellows on Monday, May 20, in the Moscone Center.

In comments to Psychiatric News, Tabron said that the founder of the Kellogg Foundation, Will Keith Kellogg, recognized that for children to thrive, adults from every sector of society had to take an active role in removing the barriers to their health and well-being. “Children are at the heart of everything we undertake at the Kellogg Foundation,” she said. “But too many children live in families and communities where racism is a persistent obstacle to health, education, employment, and economic viability. Psychiatrists are in a unique position to recognize the interplay between these circumstances and well-being—physical, mental, economic, and social—and to bring their insight and leadership into addressing community challenges.”

As the head of the Kellogg Foundation, Tabron leads its work to support vulnerable children and working families and create conditions necessary for children to thrive. She has played a leadership role in the foundation’s racial equity, diversity, and inclusion work for more than two decades—both internally through work with its board and staff and externally through its work with grantees, partners, and vendors.

She helped develop the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (THRT) project, a national and place-based process launched by the Kellogg Foundation in 2016 to bring about a sustainable transformation and address the historic and contemporary effects and consequences of racism.

“Our framework for racial equity begins with healing, and healing is deeply relational work,” Tabron told Psychiatric News. “If we want to change society so that it contributes to the health and well-being of more people, racial healing is a good place to begin. Healing lays the groundwork for expanding equity and engaging leaders from every sector into creating the society our children deserve.”

APA President Altha Stewart, M.D., said Tabron’s message of racial transformation through dialogue is one that is consistent with her focus during her presidential term on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the practice of psychiatry. Stewart said that Tabron’s message will especially resonate with APA members and others in attendance who have witnessed recent challenges related to the policies and services provided to vulnerable populations—women, children, racial and ethnic minority groups, immigrants, prisoners, and transgender individuals.

“Ms. Tabron has been a remarkable and transformational leader at the Kellogg Foundation, bringing people together in communities and creating a space for authentic dialogue, which we as psychiatrists know is the foundation of healing,” she said. “We welcome her as the keynote speaker at our meeting this year in San Francisco and look forward to hearing her message of a role for psychiatry in improving the nation’s health and emotional well-being.”

As a community and civic leader, Tabron serves on the Detroit Workforce Development Board, the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan, and the Kalamazoo Chapter of the Links Inc. She also serves on the boards of Battle Creek Community Health Partners, Bronson Healthcare Group, and the Kellogg Company. She chairs the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Trust.

Tabron holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor and a master’s degree in business administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. She received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Marygrove College in Detroit and an honorary doctorate from Union Institute and University. She is a certified public accountant and certified management accountant licensed in Michigan. She is also a graduate of the inaugural class of the Council on Foundations’ Career Pathways Program.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal pioneer Will Keith Kellogg and is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. ■

The Convocation of Distinguished Fellows will be held Monday, May 20, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in Hall F, Exhibition Level, Moscone North.