Keith L . Fishburne has been the president and CEO of Special Olympics North Carolina since May 1997. In this role, he is responsible for overall management of the organization, which serves 45,000 registered athletes & unified partners statewide, supported by a $6.5 million budget, a staff of 40, and more than 40,000 volunteers. In 1997 when he became President/CEO of the organization, Fishburne was also named a member of the Board and executive committee for the 1999 Special Olympics World Summer Games, which brought more than 7,000 athletes from over 150 countries worldwide to North Carolina for 10 days of competition and events. From February 2002 to February 2005, Fishburne served as chairman of the Special Olympics United States Leadership Council (USLC), a leadership body dedicated to the strategic quality growth of Special Olympics programming throughout the country. Since then, he has either chaired or served as a member of a variety of national committees including the USLC Public Relations & Education Committee, Special Olympics International (SOI) Risk Management Task Force, USLC Finance & Development Committee, and the USLC Resource Development Committee. As a founding member of PREC, formed in 1994, Fishburne led the committee in development of a nationwide collaborative public education effort that resulted in Special Olympics’ first national public education campaign, "Training for Life,” introduced in 1996. During the pandemic, he was a member of the Return to Activities Task Force as part of the Special Olympics response to the pandemic. Fishburne has been recognized for his leadership and dedication to the community beyond Special Olympics, having received the William C. Friday Excellence in Leadership and Service Award in 2010 for significant contributions to the betterment of the human condition presented by the Park Scholars of NC State University, Class of 2010. He served as a member of the Park Scholarships Advisory Committee at NC State University 2011-2017. In 2020, he was named to the North Carolina Sports Leadership Council of the NC Sports Association, joining sports leaders across North Carolina in serving as a collective voice on issues impacting the sports event industry. He was named to the 2022, 2023 & 2024 Business North Carolina's Power List of the magazine's report on the state's most influential leaders. Currently, Fishburne is a member of the Special Olympics USLC, and chair of the SOI Integrated Direct Marketing Program. He is also a member of the USLC Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Task Force.