City’s Scarboro passionate about sharing Memphis

Memphis Standout profile for The Memphis Daily News

May 31, 2013

Born and raised in Fayetteville, N.C., Douglas Scarboro has chosen to make Memphis his home. As the executive director of the Office of Talent and Human Capital for the City of Memphis, his job is to help others realize the opportunities and recognize the same assets that he has found here.

While nonprofits such as the New Memphis Institute, and corporate employers such as FedEx and International Paper, are players in the same human resource game, Scarboro said that when he first entered city government, “there was not another office that we had seen that focused specifically on recruiting, retaining and attracting talent for an overall metropolitan area.”

Rashana Lincoln, director of community engagement for New Memphis, a position previously held by Scarboro, works closely with the government office and says that Scarboro “understands what it means to be a young professional breaking into the community” as a transplant to Memphis.

“Having come through New Memphis and being a fellow really set him up to excel in his current role because he is part of a network of people that are committed to moving the city forward,” Lincoln said.

Even as he navigated his way through an alphabet of degrees – a bachelor’s from Morehouse College, master’s from Campbell University, doctorate from the University of Memphis – Scarboro was uncertain of his final goal, other than the want to help affect change within a community. It was a lofty goal and one first presented while a student at Morehouse and during 1996 when the Summer Olympics was in full swing in Atlanta … (read more)