April 10 – Meet our Speaker DeVone Holt!

Today we welcome to the Rotary podium DeVone Holt, a multi-talented executive who combines nearly thirty years of experience as an institutional brand manager, culture creator, strategic communicator, and people convener.

In 2024, Holt was named president and CEO of the Muhammad Ali Center(MAC)in Louisville, Kentucky. The MAC is a 96,000-square-foot cultural center that showcases the life and legacy of Muhammad Ali, and carries forward his legacy of service to others and fighting for justice for all.

Prior to joining the Muhammad Ali Center, Holt served as the Chief External Affairs Officer at Goodwill Industries of Kentucky. During his five years at Goodwill, he helped the nonprofit organization turn a 20-acre inner-city brownfield site into a $120 million Opportunity Campus in Louisville’s most underserved community. In addition to overseeing the marketing, communications, public relations, fundraising, and government affairs for Goodwill, he also served as Superintendent of Kentucky’s very first high school for adults, which Goodwill opened in 2022 after a successful multi-year lobbying and fundraising campaign led by Holt.

Previously, Holt served as the National Director of Customer Engagement for ResCare WorkforceServices and the Special Assistant to the Superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools, functioning as the lead external affairs officer for both organizations.

His leadership efforts were recognized in a community study conducted by Leadership Louisville, which identified him as one of the city’s most “connected” citizens who has found success as “getting things done” as a “trusted leader.”

As an economic development professional, his work helped create approximately $400 million in new business investments and more than 1,000 new jobs for inner-city residents. He produced these unprecedented results by managing the inner-city business expansion and attraction project for the city of Louisville for seven years before founding the Urban InsightAgency, which served as a consulting firm that helped companies maximize their investments in urban markets.

In 2003, his best-selling bookHip-Hop Slop: The Impact of a Dysfunctional Culture was published and led him to the lecture circuit. Since then, the book has become the subject of a national debate and has been deemed required reading for college students around the country.

For ten years, Holt served as lead host, writer, and producer of the “Saturday Morning Solutions”radio show in Louisville where he helped create one of the area’s largest and most loyal listening audiences by sharing strategies on how to improve urban communities.

In 2024, Holt received an honorary doctorate degree from Simmons College of Kentucky for his decades of work in helping to revitalize inner city communities and the people who live in them.

DeVone is married to Lori Holt and they are the parents of two future leaders: Alexandra andAaron. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.