Chapel Hill, N.C. – The Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise has awarded the 2010 Rollie Tillman Jr. Award for Outstanding Leadership to George Feese, a Kenan-Flagler Business School MBA 2010 graduate and Kenan Institute Leadership Fellow.

“George has been keenly attuned to the broader needs of the Leadership Fellows program, spearheading the program’s rebranding and expansion this year,” said Kenan Institute Director John D. Kasarda in presenting the award. “Even while in India for an exchange program this spring, George continued to be a presence at the institute. He communicated remotely with the other leadership fellows and kept informed and engaged in the work everyone was doing, making a special effort to mentor the first-year leadership fellows even when he was thousands of miles away. He is a one-man machine – unstoppable.”

The Tillman award, named for Kenan-Flagler professor emeritus of marketing Rollie Tillman Jr., the institute’s first director, is given each year to a graduating MBA Leadership Fellow in recognition of superior contributions. Leadership Fellows are students who work to connect Kenan-Flagler MBA students’ skills, talents and ambitions to institute opportunities through which they can demonstrate and further develop their problem-solving competencies and apply their course work to real-life situations in some of the world’s most dynamic markets.

Feese, a Nebraska native and West Point graduate, served eight years in the U.S. Army Infantry, including six months in Kosovo and 27 months in Iraq, before enrolling in the MBA program at UNC Kenan-Flagler. He traveled to Tsinghua University in Beijing in summer 2009 to participate in the Food and Drug Safety Symposium led by the institute’s UNC-Tsinghua Center for Logistics and Enterprise Development. Upon his return, Feese joined the N.C. Chinese Business Association and helped foster a new partnership between the association and the institute.

He took a lead role in planning the inaugural China Connexion Challenge, the institute’s new business-plan competition in which students from seven leading business schools grappled with the logistical challenges facing companies doing business in China. Feese begins work this summer at Sikorsky, a company owned by Challenge sponsor United Technologies Corp., where he will participate in its Leadership Development Program.

Kasarda announced Feese’s award at the annual dinner honoring graduating leadership fellows. Besides Feese, the institute honored 2009-2010 fellows Jessica Lusakueno, Stephanie Poole and Napoleon Wallace.

Four first-year MBA students, who will continue their two-year service as fellows in 2010-2011, are Jeremy Bergwerff, Kate Breen, Alicia Conway and Meghan Roecklein. Four incoming MBA students will join the fellows program in fall 2010.

Kasarda praised all of the fellows for their service to the institute and business school. Among their activities during the past year, fellows helped organize and execute the new China Connexion Challenge as well as two high-profile Business Across Borders events, one on Africa featuring renowned economist Dambisa Moyo, which attracted more than 700 people, and another on Brazil featuring institute board member Tony Harrington, former U.S. Ambassador.

For more information on the Leadership Fellows program, contact Kenan Institute Director of Outreach Lingmei Howell, who directs the program, at (919) 962-2686 or .

The Kenan Institute, part of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, pursues cutting-edge research, educational programs and public policy initiatives in the areas of entrepreneurship, economic development and global competitiveness. For more information, visit www.kenaninstitute.unc.edu or call (919) 962-8201.