Our Leadership

Henry L. Coaxum, Jr. flips ham­burg­ers for a liv­ing. Lit­er­ally, as pres­i­dent of Coaxum Enter­prises, Inc., he is the owner/operator of seven McDonald’s restau­rants in the New Orleans area. His first job with the McDonald’s Cor­po­ra­tion was as a man­ager trainee at the McDonald’s restau­rant located on the I-10 Ser­vice Road and Read Boule­vard in East­ern New Orleans in 1984. His career came full cir­cle in 2002 when he became the owner/operator of that very same restau­rant. This restau­rant also has the dis­tinc­tion of being the first McDonald’s to receive the Nation Restau­rant News’ Suc­cess­ful Set­tings Award in 2003.Although three of Coaxum’s orig­i­nal restau­rants he opened in 2002 were dam­aged and closed due to Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina, he bought and reopened the St. Charles Avenue restau­rant in Feb­ru­ary 2006 – just in time for the 150th Mardi Gras cel­e­bra­tion in New Orleans. This was the first McDonald’s restau­rant to reopen on the east bank of New Orleans post Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina. In 2006, Coaxum set a restau­ra­teur record by acquir­ing and reopen­ing four closed full-service restau­rants in five months. In Decem­ber 2006, Coaxum reopened his originally-owned Read Boule­vard loca­tion, which was rebuilt to its award-winning appear­ance and décor.Coaxum helps to keep the “Golden Arches” shin­ing through his fundrais­ing efforts with: the 100 Black Men of Greater New Orleans; the Gram­bling Uni­ver­sity Ath­letic Foun­da­tion; the African Amer­i­can Her­itage Pro­gram of the Preser­va­tion Resource Cen­ter; the New Orleans African Amer­i­can Museum; the United Way of Greater New Orleans; the Louisiana Art­Works; the Amis­tad Research Center’s Achieve­ment Com­mit­tee; and the United Negro Col­lege Fund. Coaxum served as Chair of the UNCF’s Annual “Fund Run” for 2007 and 2008.He has served as a mem­ber of the boards of direc­tors of United Bank & Trust Com­pany, the Gram­bling Uni­ver­sity Ath­letic Foun­da­tion, the New Orleans East Busi­ness Asso­ci­a­tion, the New Orleans African Amer­i­can Museum; the United Way of Greater New Orleans and the Louisiana Art­Works. For two con­sec­u­tive years, Coaxum and his wife Karen served as Co-Chairs of the “Ladies in Red” an annual fundraiser of the African Amer­i­can Her­itage Pro­gram of the Preser­va­tion Resource Center.

In August 2010, Coaxum was elected as Pres­i­dent of the Great South­ern Region’s Black McDonald’s Oper­a­tors Asso­ci­a­tion. Also in August, Coaxum was appointed by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Lan­drieu as Chair­man of the NOLA Busi­ness Alliance Board, launch­ing the city’s first-ever public-private part­ner­ship for eco­nomic devel­op­ment. Also that month, he was appointed to the Board of Com­mis­sion­ers of the city’s Hos­pi­tal Ser­vice Dis­trict Board that will over­see the devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion of a full ser­vice hos­pi­tal in East­ern New Orleans.

In recog­ni­tion of their exem­plary lead­er­ship in com­mu­nity vol­un­teerism and phil­an­thropy, Coaxum and his wife were named the recip­i­ents of the United Way of the Greater New Orleans Area’s 2011 Alexis de Toc­queville Award — the high­est honor bestowed by United Way.

Coaxum’s work with the area’s youth also is being fur­thered as a McDonald’s fran­chisee. He offers two edu­ca­tion incen­tive pro­grams for his stu­dent employ­ees. For high school stu­dents, employ­ees are rewarded with pay raises for good grades. And for col­lege stu­dents, his “schol­ar­ships” help pay for books and tuition if the stu­dent employ­ees’ grades are main­tained while being employed. “Our youth need to learn that you can get rewarded if you work hard at both school and a job. Who knows, that job could end up being your career,” he says.

Rodrick T. Miller is the pres­i­dent and CEO of the New Orleans Busi­ness Alliance, the offi­cial eco­nomic devel­op­ment orga­ni­za­tion respon­si­ble for dri­ving the long-term eco­nomic vital­ity of the City of New Orleans. Miller arrives at the NOLA Busi­ness Alliance, after hav­ing served as the Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of the Baton Rouge Area Cham­ber. In that role, he man­aged the day-to-day oper­a­tions, strate­gic plan­ning, and coor­di­nated efforts for the firm’s $20M cap­i­tal cam­paign. Pre­vi­ously, Miller was Vice Pres­i­dent of Inter­na­tional Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment for the Greater Phoenix Eco­nomic Coun­cil (GPEC) where he lead inter­na­tional eco­nomic devel­op­ment activ­i­ties which encom­passed for­eign direct invest­ment (FDI) attrac­tion, deep­en­ing rela­tion­ships with for­eign mar­kets, and increas­ing inter­na­tional com­pet­i­tive­ness of the region. Miller was instru­men­tal in craft­ing the Ari­zona Global Net­work, a statewide col­lab­o­ra­tion of eco­nomic devel­op­ment orga­ni­za­tions. Through his devel­op­ment of GPEC’s action plan, Miller deliv­ered 9,600 jobs in just two years through his lead­er­ship in the areas of com­pet­i­tive­ness prac­tice and pub­lic pol­icy efforts. Before GPEC, Rod held a myr­iad of posi­tions in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors with the City of Glen­dale, Infra­struc­ture Man­age­ment Group, Ernst & Young, and CEMEX.Rodrick holds a Mas­ter of Pub­lic Pol­icy degree from Har­vard University’s Kennedy School of Gov­ern­ment and a BSc. in Inter­na­tional Busi­ness from St. Augustine’s Col­lege. He also gained a Grad­u­ate Diploma in Finance from the Mon­ter­rey Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy (ITESM) in Mex­ico while com­plet­ing a Ful­bright Fel­low­ship there. Rodrick was a Woodrow Wil­son Fel­low and a Fel­low at the Inter­na­tional Career Advance­ment Pro­gram at the Aspen Insti­tute. Miller was rec­og­nized by Ebony Mag­a­zine as a ris­ing young leader under 30, the Phoenix Busi­ness Jour­nal as one of the “Forty Lead­ers in Ari­zona under 40″, The Phoenix Busi­ness Jour­nal as a “Global Power Player” and the Ari­zona Repub­lic as the “Exec­u­tive of the Week”. In his spare time he enjoys play­ing the piano, singing, and explor­ing the New Orleans music scene.