Rose McKinney-James directed the Department of Business and Industry, Nevada’s largest state agency and was recognized for her innovation providing efficient and advanced services to the business community. As the former CEO of CSTRR, a solar and renewable energy company, she is credited with authoring the strategy to fast-track the integration of renewable resources into utility energy portfolios. A registered lobbyist with the Nevada Legislature, she has represented the interests of Fortune 500 companies, local government, and small business interests.

McKinney-James has over two decades of service as a public company director. Since 2005, she has been a member of the Board of Directors of MGM Resorts International, where she currently chairs the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee and serves on the Compensation Committee. Additionally, she has served as chair of Governance and Nomination for Employers Insurance and of the Compliance and Diversity Committees for Mandalay Resort Group.

McKinney-James serves on the boards of NACD Pacific Southwest and MGM Detroit; chairs the CRA Committee for Toyota Financial Savings Bank and the Governance and Nominations Committee for the Energy Foundation; and is the chair emerita for the American Association of Blacks in Energy.

McKinney-James is a 2021 NACD Directorship 100 honoree. She is also the 2019 recipient of the Direct Women Sandra Day O’Connor Award for Board Excellence and the inaugural GreenBiz Verge VANGUARD Award. She has been recognized by the US Small Business Administration as Small Business Advocate of the Year and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and the Nevada Conservation League. McKinney-James is listed in the Black Enterprise Registry of Black Corporate Directors and in SAVOY Magazine Power 300 among the most influential African American corporate Directors in the United States. A native of Detroit, Michigan, McKinney-James resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is a graduate of the Antioch School of Law in Washington, DC, and received her BA from Olivet College in Olivet Michigan.