Chancellor Martin Named Triad Business Journal 2026 C-Suite Award Winner

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (July 15, 2026) — North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Chancellor James R. Martin II has been named one of Triad Business Journal’s C-Suite Award winners for 2026.

The Business Journal is recognizing 12 top executives selected from a competitive pool of Piedmont Triad nominees including CEOs and presidents from some of the region’s largest organizations and most recognizable brands, as well as chief financial officers, chief operating officers and executive directors. The publication will celebrate the winners this evening at a special dinner event in High Point.

This is the latest accolade for Martin, who was formally installed as chancellor on N.C. A&T’s Founders Day, March 9.

He was inducted last month into the 2026 class of the Virginia Tech Academy of Engineering Excellence, one of the highest honors awarded to alumni of Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering. In May 2025, Martin was inducted into The Citadel School of Engineering’s Academy of Engineers for outstanding leadership and advances in engineering and education over the past four decades.

Martin was elected A&T’s 13^th chancellor by a unanimous vote of the University of North Carolina System Board of Governors on June 21, 2024. Since then, he has advanced a bold institutional vision centered on research growth, student success, innovation and national prominence.

His leadership continues to strengthen the university’s position as a burgeoning research university and America’s leading historically Black university, with major impact across engineering, technology, economic mobility and workforce preparation.

Last year, Martin was elected chair of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) influential Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering. The 19-member congressionally mandated committee, upon which he has served since 2021, advises NSF on policies, programs, practices and activities to encourage broad participation of Americans in all levels of the nation’s STEM enterprise.

Before taking the helm of the nation’s largest HBCU, Martin served as vice chancellor for STEM Research and Innovation at the University of Pittsburgh, where he drove initiatives ranging from developing the university’s core STEM landscape to leading research strategy and development for Pitt’s four regional campuses around Pennsylvania, after serving as U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering for Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering.