Dr. Kase L. Lawal
Dr. Kase L. Lawal is the non-executive Chairman of CAMAC International Corporation, a global corporation with interests in Banking, Engineering Services and Crude oil and Refined products trading for markets in Africa, Europe, South America and North America. Additionally, he retired in 2016 as Chairman and CEO of Erin Energy, a NYSE publicly-listed energy company. He is the Chairman of the Unity National Bank Board of Directors, the only nationally licensed and federally insured African-American owned bank in Texas and Georgia, USA. Dr. Lawal is a major shareholder in the bank as well.
CAMAC has been featured on Forbes Magazinelist of the 400 largest privately-owned corporations in the United States. CAMAC was also designated the 2006 Company of the Year by Black Enterpriseand named the ninth largest privately owned company in 2008 by the Houston Chronicle. CAMAC has affiliate offices located in Bogotá, Columbia; London, England, Abuja, and Lagos, Nigeria; Accra, Ghana, Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa. Corporate headquarters are located in Houston, Texas.
Committed to community service, Dr. Lawal provides key leadership on several boards and commissions, including having served as a Commissioner on the Port of Houston Authority Board, where he functioned as the first-ever Vice Chairman of the largest Seaport in foreign tonnage in the United States with over 125 billion dollars in cargo value. His terms of service include June 1999 through September 2013. In addition, he served as Vice Chairman of the Houston Airport System Development Corporation (HASDC), the fourth largest airport system in the United States, from November 2001 through April 2014. He currently serves as a member of the National Urban League Board of Directors and is a member of the Board of Directors with the Cullen Engineering Research Foundation. He co-chairs Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS,a $300 million dollar UNICEF campaign.
For many years, Dr. Lawal has been quite active in the development of international trade relations, particularly in Africa. Dr. Lawal served under three US Presidential Administrations. He was an appointee to the United States Council on the Business Development Committee of the United States-South Africa Bi-national Commission and the United States Trade Advisory Committee on Africa under both the Clinton and Bush Administrations, and served on the Board of Directors of the Corporate Council on Africa. Furthermore, he has participated in several trade commissions to Africa on behalf of the President of the United States and the United States Secretary of Commerce. In September 2010, President Obama appointed Dr. Lawal to the White House Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiation (ACTPN) globally.
Dr. Lawal funded a one million dollar educational endowment, the largest single contribution from an alumnus of Texas Southern University, to establish the Lawal Center for Global Tradein the Jesse H. Jones School of Business. In 1992, he established a petroleum engineering endowment at the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering for petroleum engineering students.
He is a proud graduate of Texas Southern University holding a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Prairie View A&M University with a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, specializing in Finance and Marketing. He was awarded a doctorate in Philosophy from Fort Valley State University and a Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa from Texas Southern University.
