Rice University Posse Alum Brandy Morrison Joins National Board
Brandy Morrison, a member of Rice University’s inaugural Posse cohort, has joined The Posse Foundation’s National Board of Directors—becoming the fourth Posse alum and the first alumna in the organization’s 36-year history to serve in this leadership role.
Raised on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Brandy was selected to attend Rice University in Houston, Texas, as part of a then new engineering-focused Posse cohort created to recruit students with strong math and science potential.
“I had never heard of Rice, and, honestly, I didn’t know what an engineer was,” Brandy recalls. “Debbie, Posse’s president and founder, doubled down on this being a leadership scholarship. She identified something in me that says, ‘You are a leader.’”
Transitioning from New York City public schools to a top-tier private engineering program came with cultural and academic challenges, but Brandy credits her Posse for helping her navigate the shift. Among the most formative experiences, she says, was the PossePlus Retreat.
“We were bringing together pockets of the university that wouldn’t have otherwise come together,” she says. “It was bigger than my fear of public speaking. It was about building community.”
After completing her engineering degree, Brandy began her career as a software engineer at Compaq (later Hewlett-Packard), where she quickly realized she excelled at connecting technical and nontechnical teams—“a superpower,” she says, that shaped her entire career. She later earned her MBA from Rice and joined IBM in Washington, D.C., working in public sector consulting before taking on international assignments in Canada, Sweden, Bulgaria, and the United Kingdom.
Leadership to me is bringing a voice to others who may not have a voice.
Throughout her academic and professional journey, Brandy continued to build community. At Rice Business, she co-founded both the International Club and the Black Business Student Association. In the D.C. region, she helped create the Digital Services Coalition—a network of vendors improving public-facing government services such as login.gov and HealthCare.gov—and later co-founded an organization supporting women-owned small businesses.
Brandy has also remained deeply connected to Posse. She joined the Posse D.C. Advisory Board around 2008 and has continued to volunteer and support the organization while raising three sons. She recently completed a four-year term as a Rice University trustee, becoming the institution’s third Black woman trustee.
When Posse President and Founder Deborah Bial invited her to join the National Board, Brandy says she felt both honored and called to action.
“I am very humbled to have been considered and now elected to that position. For me, it carries a sense of obligation.”
Brandy describes her leadership philosophy as elevating others.
“Leadership to me is bringing a voice to others who may not have a voice,” she says. “Leaders should identify the hidden gems in their communities and build a pipeline for the next generation.”
Her advice to current Scholars and alumni is simple: “Be authentic. Posse embraces the holistic person, your authentic self, regardless of your background.” Still the connector in her Rice cohort, Brandy says Posse shaped her into someone willing to lean into challenge and possibility.
“I went from being just intellectually skillful to being curious, to being not afraid to conquer the unknown,” she says. “I’m not afraid to push past my own fears.”
