Texas College announced Essence CEO and 2005 alumna Caroline A. Wanga will be honored at their Spring 2021 Commencement.

Texas College announced Essence CEO and 2005 alumna Caroline A. Wanga will be honored at their Spring 2021 Commencement.

Wagna, who will also serve as the occasion’s speaker, will be bestowed with the honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters at the virtual event held on May 15.

Essence is the leading and only 100% Black-owned media, technology and commerce company dedicated to Black women and communities.

The honorary doctorate is Wanga’s second degree from Texas College, which comes 16 years after she received her first degree, a baccalaureate degree in Business Administration.

Around the same time, Wanga began to work for Target Corporation in Tyler as a distribution center intern. While in the supply chain realm through her corporate journey, she also served in a variety of transformational leadership roles, including modernizing supply chain, business intelligence, digital and strategy capabilities.

For 15 years, Wanga climbed the ranks within Target, bringing her to the “C-Suite,” also known as executive-level management.

Along with her many preceding impressive accomplishments and through holding several nonprofit roles, Wanga would eventually become Target’s chief culture, diversity and inclusion officer until 2020.

Last summer, Wanga left Target to join Essence Ventures, a parent company of Essence, as chief growth officer. Within the same month, she was named interim CEO of Essence.

In February, she was officially appointed to serve as Essence’s CEO. Though she assumed the role of chief executive for Essence, she maintains a dual role as chief growth officer for Essence Ventures.

Wanga is a self-proclaimed cultural architect with a passion for constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing organizational culture. She champions authenticity and thrives while she inspires in innovative environments, according to Texas College’s announcement.

With a background in corporate and community leadership, her career expands over several disciplines and capabilities including youth development, grant writing, community organizing, supply chain, human resources, culture and media.

Wanga has worked her way up from entry-level positions to the highest of senior leadership roles and is passionate about modeling what she teaches, the announcement stated.

Her “real talk” delivery, witty thought leadership and unmitigated perspective on democratizing authenticity as a differentiator for individuals and organizations, make her a highly sought-after keynote speaker, equity strategist, thought leader and community influencer.

She unapologetically believes that who each person is, is non-negotiable and is often quoted saying, “Who you are is who you are. If you cannot be who you are where you care, you change where you are not who you are.”

Among other accolades, Wanga has been named Top Executive in Corporate Diversity by Black Enterprise and recognized by Savoy as one of the Most Powerful Women in Corporate America.

She is a member of the Executive Leadership Council, the Talladega College Board of Trustees and the American Airlines Community Council.

She previously served on the Intersectionality, Culture and Diversity Advisory Board for Twitter and as co-chair of the Retail Industry Leaders Association Diversity and Inclusion Initiative. She is a Kenyan citizen and she says her life’s greatest accomplishment is her daughter, Cadence.