Dennis Derryck

Overview

Dennis Derryck is Professor of Professional Practice at New School University. With 30 years of experience linking theory to practice, he has managed and had fiduciary responsibility for organizations with a staff of three and an annual budget of $150,000 to a staff of 106 with an annual budget of $165 million. His experiences span the nonprofit, public, and private sectors. Dennis was the first Managing Director of the Food and Industrial Products Company (FIPCO), a holding company based in Liberia, West Africa. In three years, he grew FIPCO’s revenues from $1 million to $4 million by importing foods from across three continents and distributing these food items in difficult geographic and political environments. FIPCO was among five organizations that he led as successful start-ups or successfully turned around. Dennis has overseen the development of social ventures at the New School through his Social Entrepreneurship through Design course and his Community Development practicum, where his graduate students have won the JP Morgan Chase Community Development Competition four out of eight years. He was most recently the Chair of WE ACT for Environmental Justice and is currently Vice Chair of the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation (SoBRO). Dennis’s community involvement includes but is not limited to the following: Manhattan Community Planning Board 9 (First Vice Chair), Vice President’s Task Force on Youth Employment, CREDIT (Community Bank of SOBRO), Former Chair of Senior Employment Service, and the Financial Services Corporation of New York City. He most recently served as an advisor to the National Urban League Economic Opportunity Institute and has just completed his third year as a member of the New York Times Company Nonprofit Excellence Award Selection Committee. Dennis earned his BS from Manhattan College in Mathematics and his MS and PhD from Fordham University in Education Administration and Supervision.