Business Leader Selected to Lead NCCU B-School

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D. Keith Pigues, a business executive, author and teacher, has been named dean of the School of Business at North Carolina Central University. Pigues comes to NCCU from PlyGem Industries, a privately held building-products company based in Cary. He was the company’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer and a member of the company’s executive committee. He previously held executive positions at CEMEX, RR Donnelley, ADP and Honeywell International.

He also has been an adjunct professor at Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he taught courses in leadership and served as an executive coach for the Leadership Immersion, a course on corporate leadership development.

“Our long-term goal is for the business school at NCCU is to be one of the best in the country,” NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms says. “Achieving that goal requires the expertise of a visionary leader who can establish strategic partnerships with the business community. I am confident that Keith Pigues has the passion and expertise needed to do just that.”

Pigues is past chairman of the Business Marketing Association’s board of directors and a member of the Executive Leadership Council. He began his career in sales and marketing with IBM and Hewlett-Packard and has more than twenty-five years of experience in marketing, strategic planning and sales leadership. He is the author of “Winning with Customers: A Playbook for B2B”.
“We’re poised for transformative change and innovation,” NCCU Provost Debbie Thomas says. “With Pigues’ appointment, we’re shifting away from traditional leadership to one characterized by strong ties to both the corporate and educational sectors.”

Black Enterprise magazine named Pigues one of its top executives in marketing and advertising for 2011. B2B magazine recognized him as a leading senior marketing practitioner and a member of “Who’s Who in B-to-B” in 2007 and 2010. He received the Frost & Sullivan Marketing Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

“I look forward to partnering with the business community to increase awareness of the NCCU School of Business and position it as a leading global business school,” Pigues says. “This will be exciting.”

Pigues received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1984 from Christian Brothers University in Memphis and an MBA from Kenan-Flagler in 1993.