Kim Trent

Native Detroiter Kim Trent has leveraged her long track record as a highly effective activist and communicator to build a stellar reputation for principled community leadership.

Currently serving as senior vice president for corporate and civic engagement for Detroit public affairs firm Compass Strategies, Ms. Trent began her career as an award-winning city hall reporter for The Detroit News. There, she covered the city’s housing department, Detroit City Council and the mayoral administrations of Coleman A. Young and Dennis W. Archer. As a member of Newspaper Guild 22, she left The News in 1995 during the Local’s labor strike against the paper. In 1996, she moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where she earned a graduate diploma in African Studies from the University of Cape Town. She returned to the United States and after a brief stint as a city hall reporter for the Toledo Blade, joined the Washington staff of Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick in 1997.

After five years as Congresswoman Kilpatrick’s communications director, Ms. Trent joined the staff of United States Senator Debbie Stabenow as Stabenow’s Detroit regional manager. She was later appointed director of Governor Jennifer M. Granholm’s southeast Michigan office, then a cabinet-level position in state government. Most recently, she served as policy associate for Michigan Future Schools, an Ann Arbor-based think tank that is focused on creating strategies to help Michigan build prosperity in a knowledge-based economy.

Ms. Trent is a committed social activist. In 2006, she served as president of One United Michigan, a statewide campaign to protect affirmative action in Michigan government employment, contracting and public university admissions. While the campaign was unsuccessful, Trent worked to build strong partnerships between corporate and nonprofit leaders, elected officials and other stakeholders that endure even today. In 2015, Trent launched the African American 490 Challenge, a successful campaign to mobilize African American women to raise more than $600,000 to pay for the processing of the city’s abandoned rape kits.

In 2012, more than two million Michigan voters elected Ms. Trent to an eight-year term on the Wayne State University Board of Governors. She currently serves as the board’s chairwoman. Her priority as a board member has been working to improve the university’s anemic six-year graduation rate for African American undergraduate students.

Ms. Trent earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and Africana studies and a master’s degree in communication from Wayne State University. She has completed fellowships with the American Political Science Association in Washington D.C. and the Michigan Political Leadership Program at Michigan State University. She is also a graduate of Leadership Detroit. She is a weekly guest columnist for the Detroit Free Press’ editorial page and is a regular panelist on Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV’s weekday morning show “Live in the D.”

Ms. Trent serves as president of the Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation and vice president of Detroit non-profit Connect Detroit. She is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority’s National Social Action Commission. She has received many awards, including the State Bar of Michigan’s Liberty Bell Award and the Michigan Democratic Party’s Martin Luther King Leadership Award. She lives in Detroit with her husband, author and communications consultant Ken Coleman, and their son.

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