Zeta Phi Beta Sorority installs 25th president

WASHINGTON — Valerie Hollingsworth-Baker will lead Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. into its centennial year in 2020 as the 25th international president after being elected at the organization’s Grand Boulé.

The 98-year-old international women’s service organization met from July 18 to 22 in New Orleans, where members were brought together for business meetings, fellowship, community service and re-dedication to its founding principles that includes scholarship and sisterhood. The sorority, which has 125,000-plus members at more than 800 chapters worldwide, also gathered to elect executive board officers who serve for two years.

Hollingsworth-Baker had served as the immediate past international first vice president. Outside the sorority, she is the director of the Inforce Systems Division, a unit at New York Life Insurance Co. responsible for managing multi-million-dollar projects and programs as well as training personnel, according to a Zeta news release.

The New York native is an alumna of Fordham University, receiving her bachelor degree at age of 18. She has been recognized in the “Who’s Who of Information and Technology” and “Outstanding Women of America” publications.

Hollingsworth-Baker succeeds Mary Breaux Wright of Houston.

Wright’s notable accomplishments as leader included the sorority’s record-breaking fundraising efforts for the March of Dimes as well as contributions to St. Jude, the American Cancer Society, Women’s Veterans ROCK and the Smithsonian African American Museum, the release said.

She also led Zeta’s international expansion, chartering chapters in Belgium, England, the United Arab Emirates, the Bahamas, and Trinidad and Tobago.