TONY ALLEN is Executive Vice President and Provost at Delaware State University, one of the nation’s oldest and most diverse Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). As the institution’s Chief Academic Officer, Tony leads a faculty of more than 200 professors and 21 academic departments serving nearly 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
Previously, he led the corporate reputation group at Bank of America and was responsible for developing programming to influential external audiences at the national and local level. He was also responsible for ongoing reputation analysis and related research and led communications for the bank’s Consumer, Commercial Banking and Wealth Management businesses. He started his financial services career as Executive Vice President at MBNA America.

Prior to his career in the private sector, Tony spent many years in the not-for-profit and public service sectors. He was the founding president of the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League where he advocated for equity in education, minority business procurement and urban revitalization, and also worked for several years with former Vice President of the United States Joseph R. Biden. He started his career as the co-founder of Public Allies Delaware, a leadership organization for young adults interested in full-time, public service careers. Since 1994, more than 600 “Allies” contributed nearly 1 million hours of volunteer service to Delaware communities.

Tony has also written extensively in many periodicals and publications including the National Urban League’s annual journal, State of Black America, and its syndicated column To Be Equal. He is also the author of Devolution and Intergovernmental Decision-Making (2001) and the editor of The Pace of Progress: A Comparative Analysis of Racial Disparities (2002).
He is a former trustee and Senior Policy Fellow at the University of Delaware, a trustee at the Laffey-McHugh Foundation and director emeritus with the Wilmington Hope Commission. He is also the chairman emeritus of the National Urban Fellows, the oldest academic fellowship for mid-career professionals of color in the country, and is currently Chairman of the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission, a Commission created to strengthen public education for low-income black and brown students throughout the Delaware.

Tony is a Whitney M. Young awardee for Advancing Racial Equality, the National Urban League’s highest honor, and in 2012 was named Delaware Citizen of the Year. In 2016, he was named PR Council National Diversity Champion and has received many other honors throughout his career. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and a doctorate in urban affairs & public policy from the University of Delaware as well as a master’s in public administration from Baruch College (City University of New York).