Dr. Sherri Arnold-Graham
Reverend Dr. Sherri Arnold-Graham is a native of Clairton, Pennsylvania, which is known as, “The City of Prayer.” From Clairton High School she earned a Full Academic Scholarship to the Harvard of the South, The Emory University School of Business. As a Student leader at Emory she served as Black Student Alliance President and interned for both Coco Cola and Columbia Pictures, landing a two State Territory with Procter & Gamble upon graduation. Building upon her mother’s legacy managing five Head Start Centers. Dr. Sherri believes her Proctor & Gamble training engrained her propensity to build territories and communities.
Desiring to build bridges (perhaps because her father worked for United States Steel), after three years with Legal Aid she returned to her corporate training via “Federal Investors,” Wall Street, and the international law firm of Roger & Wells. She was once quoted as saying “God promoted me from investing in commodities to investing in souls.”
Recognizing her call to preach at age 12, she was acutely aware that women preachers were not welcome in her devout Baptist Heritage. Obviously, delayed is not denied… because she accepted her call at thirty-three, was denied ordination for a decade, yet in 2010 became the first female pastor of a mainline Baptist Church in the history of Raleigh, North Carolina. Additionally, in 2013 she became the first pastor to become the Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Woman’s Baptist Home and Foreign Missionary Convention of North Carolina. She went on to become the first Director of Development for the Lilly Endowment’s grant to Shaw University Divinity School, the oldest HBCU of the South.
Dr. Sherri has the business acumen and theological training to help move mountains! She has an acute and proven understanding of Investment Principles, High Finance and Executive Church Leadership. Hence, the birth of Dunamis Development Associates: “Customized Consulting Services to Transform Communities with a Moral Compass.”
Dr. Sherri is a change agent and a transformer and serial entrepreneur. She has been referenced to have the “Midas Touch” as God’s Engineer. She is a preacher, conference speaker, workshop presenter extraordinaire and she shares the roadmap for building pure non-profits and businesses with fiscal integrity as she manages over four million dollars in assets.
