Inaugural Alumni Award Selection
Pioneering Walton Isaacson CEO /Co-Founder Aaron Walton will receive Babson College’s 2020 Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award for his efforts reflecting Dr. King’s principles and ideals in philosophy and action.
Babson has selected Walton for the inaugural alumni category of the College’s MLK Jr. Leadership Awards. The College will present the honor to Walton, a member of the Class of 1983, during ceremonies at its Wellesley campus on February 12, 2020.
“We could think of no person more deserving than Aaron Walton for the inaugural alumni award,” said the Committee Cochairs, Assistant Marketing Professor Anjali Bal and Multicultural & Identity Programs Director Patrick J. Hale, M.S. Ed. “We are so honored and proud to have Aaron Walton as a member of the Babson community.”
Babson College’s MLK Legacy Day awards honor members of the Babson community who reflect Dr. King’s principles and ideals in philosophy and action. The recipients of the awards will have gone above and beyond the requirements of job responsibilities, organizational mission, or charter, and will have raised the bar for those who follow in their footsteps. The actions and behaviors of the recipients (either on or off campus) for the betterment of the community should be in a manner consistent with the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
Every year, this award has been given to Babson students, faculty, staff, groups, or organizations. 2020 is the first year that Babson College is presenting a separate award for alumni who have embodied the principles of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in their work after leaving Babson.
Walton was chosen by the selection committee as someone who visibly demonstrated the following:
- Courage and conviction in valuing differences
- Commitment to “seeing beyond borders” by building inclusions
- Acceptance of challenge and risk in achieving goals for the greater good
- Compassion for humanity.
About Aaron Walton ’83
CEO, Walton Isaacson
Aaron Walton is CEO / co-founder of Walton Isaacson (WI), a full-service advertising agency, with offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Dallas. Walton’s boundless creativity and strategic acumen have made him one of the most admired executives throughout the Advertising, Brand Marketing and Entertainment industries. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2019 Multicultural Media Luncheon during the North American International Auto show and was named a Pride Legacy Leader by Business Equality magazine. He was also honored in 2017 by the American Association of Advertising Agencies as one of the 100 People Who Make Advertising Great, Walton was named 2015 Advertising Executive of the Year by Target Market News’ MAAX Awards (Marketing to African Americans with Excellence) and Entrepreneur of the Year by the Asian Business Association of Orange County. Walton also received the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from Better Brothers Los Angeles, an LGBT Youth focused organization, and in 2013, Walton was elected to the Ebony Magazine “POWER 100” list, an award given to the nation’s most influential Americans from the worlds of religion, business, media and the creative arts.
Under Walton’s leadership, WI has been honored as ‘Advertising Agency of the Year’ by Black Enterprise and named one of Advertising Age’s “Small Agencies of the Year”. Under his guidance, Walton Isaacson also engineered the partnership between the luxury automaker Lexus and Disney’s Marvel Studios for the international blockbuster film, “Black Panther” which garnered multiple recognitions including an ANA Award for Best Multicultural Campaign, an AAF Mosaic Award for Best Integrated Campaign, Campaign of the Year and Auto Campaign of the Year at the ThinkLA Idea Awards and Best Multicultural campaign at Media Post’s Marketing Automotive Awards.
With an expressed mission to be the “Planet’s Most Interesting Agency, WI was founded in 2005 in partnership with famed NBA superstar and entrepreneurial legend, Earvin “Magic” Johnson. The company’s mission has been a breakout success, leading to inventive and dynamic business relationships with brands and organizations including Lexus, Wells Fargo, Spalding, McDonald’s, NYPD, and Macy’s. In 2014, Walton Isaacson was ranked one of the Inc. 5000 fastest growing private companies in the U.S.
About Babson College
Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader of Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®. The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value.
Source: aaaa.org