New Detroit, Inc. announced today that its board has chosen Rachel Tronstein Stewart, President of Gardner-White Furniture, as its new chair. She succeeds William Taubman, who served as board chair for the past eight years.
Tronstein Stewart, who has been a member of the New Detroit Board since 2014, said she accepted the chair position because “it offers unlimited potential” to play a leadership role in creating solutions to address the racial inequities in our region.
“We need to address the persistent racial gap to keep improving our community,” she said. “Everything we do at New Detroit needs to be evaluated through the lens of the impact. We need to be willing to have the uncomfortable conversations with each other that are necessary to address ongoing racial inequities in our community. That’s the whole premise of New Detroit.”
Tronstein Stewart has been intricately involved in the strategic planning process at New Detroit, in which she has played a key leadership role. She is passionately committed to creating solutions to improving racial understanding and racial equity in the city and region.
Tronstein Stewart is the President of Gardner-White Furniture, a Michigan-based family-owned and operated furniture retailer since 1912. Working alongside both of her parents, she is the 4th generation of her family at Gardner-White.
Prior to coming back to Detroit to assume a role in the family business, Tronstein Stewart spent four years at the U.S. Department of Energy developing a solar energy R&D initiative to drive down the installed cost of solar energy to be cost competitive with traditional forms of electricity like coal by 2020. Prior to that, she focused on the clean energy portfolio of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.
Tronstein Stewart has an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of Michigan.
About New Detroit, Inc.
New Detroit, Inc. is a racial justice organization comprised of leaders from civil rights and advocacy organizations, human services, health and community organizations, business, labor, foundations, education, media and clergy. It provides a unique and valuable arena where leaders of these groups and organizations come together to plan cooperative strategies to address the issue of race and its many manifestations. The coalition works as a catalyst to impact the actions of individuals and institutions by serving in a number of roles: advocate, convener, and facilitator.
It is a private, non-profit, tax-exempt organization. New Detroit’s mission statement: “New Detroit is a coalition of leaders working to achieve racial understanding and racial equity in Metropolitan Detroit.”
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