What an honor to sit with one of Wall Street’s legends, as much for his huge heart as for his financial success.  Obie McKenzie is a wisdom keeper and good king, a man of many talents, plus so much more.  His passion now is teaching Biblical Economics.  This was an inspiring exchange and I hope you will click here and take a listen.

Obie McKenzie is a Managing Director at BlackRock, the largest institutional asset management firm in the United States. Mr. McKenzie graduated from Tennessee State University in 1967 and received his Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Harvard Business School in 1972. He has experienced significant success over the last 30 years as an institutional asset management marketing executive where he has been instrumental in gathering institutional assets for several firms. As a senior relationship manager for BlackRock, Mr. McKenzie is responsible for managing relationships with some of the largest pension funds in the United States, to include the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, New York City Employees’ Retirement System, and the Federal Reserve Employee Benefits System to name a few. In 2010 Mr. McKenzie received the AIMSE Richard A. Lothrop Outstanding Achievement Award as recognition for his outstanding achievements in the investment management industry and his community. In 2011 he was named by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of the 75 Most Powerful Blacks on Wall Street. In 2013 he was named Public Fund Marketer of the Year by Money Management Intelligence.

During his career, he has held positions as Managing Director at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (1990- 2006) Executive Director at UBS Asset Management and Managing Director at Chase Investors (1987-1990). From 1984 to 1987, Mr. McKenzie was President and founder of McKenzie & Company, an NASD registered broker dealer. During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Mr. McKenzie held positions at Citibank, Chemical Bank, and Freedom National Bank as a commercial banker. Mr. McKenzie was also Manager of Banking and Pensions at the New York Times in 1975 and began his career as a Corporate Finance Associate for Morgan Stanley in 1972.

Mr. McKenzie has served as President of the Association of Investment Management Sales Executives (AIMSE); founding Board member of the TOIGO Foundation and Associate Advisor to the Texas Association of Public Employees Retirement Systems (TEXPERS). He was also a founding Board member of the National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP), where he received the Wall Street Hall of Fame Award in 2001. He was also a recipient of the Wall Street Award for Service to Children from the New York Mission Society in 2006. Mr Mckenzie serves on the following boards : New York Theological Seminary , Tennessee State University, Trinity Health-New England, The Cogsville Group, Girls Who Invest, Curtis D. Robinson Center For Health Equity.

Mr. McKenzie is an accomplished public speaker and vocalist and has been an expository Bible teacher for over 30 years. He was a senior Bible teacher at Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem New York for over 20 years before joining Community Baptist Church of Englewood, NJ, where he is a layman. He is currently writing a book entitled “Bible Economics – Things I Wish I Had Known” in which he writes about his experiences in understanding money from his 42 years on Wall Street and his spiritual revelations as to what the Bible says about money, which he has developed from his 30 plus years of studying and teaching the Bible. Mr. McKenzie resides in Englewood, New Jersey with his wife Natalie Bowen-McKenzie. He is a proud father of one daughter, Keisha McKenzie-Pagden and grandfather to Samuel McKenzie-Pagden.