Mission at a National Scale

Frederick’s path to national leadership began with proximity and trust. Already a member of the ACS Board of Directors, the group that sets the organization’s vision and mission, their leadership requested he step into the lead executive’s chair on an interim basis while they decided on a more permanent option. While serving as interim chair, he encountered a mission intensity that felt distinct, even for a leader accustomed to high-stakes decision-making.

“Everybody knows someone who has had cancer, if they haven’t had it themselves,” Frederick said in explaining both the tangible and subtle depth of that institutional focus. “What is clearly unique and always there [at ACS] is the commitment to the mission. The people who work there are extremely focused on a mission, and they are all touched by it.” 

At a university, Frederick noted, the emotional tempo can be different.

“On a university campus, you have young people who bring a certain sense of immortality with them,” he said. “It is an energy that is welcomed but certainly different from my experiences at ACS.”

This juxtaposition made the role familiar in one respect and fundamentally different in another. Like Howard, ACS requires alignment across complex operations; however, unlike a university campus, the “why” is reinforced every day by the immediacy of what cancer does to bodies, families, and futures.

“With a cancer diagnosis, you’re dealing with life and death, and that’s a very unique role and situation versus dealing with a student who is trying to navigate administrative challenges — both important, but on a very different scale,” Frederick said. “You have to manage both those things appropriately, given the challenge in front of you.”

The disparities that occur with cancer outcomes for underrepresented minorities is significant, and [Howard has] been at the forefront of highlighting that.” 

From the Operating Room to the Boardroom

A distinct perspective has shaped Frederick’s ACS tenure and overall executive career: he remains a practicing oncologist. As he explained, the relationship between clinical work and executive leadership is continuous and never disparate.

“You’re leading a team, and I would say you’re taking that experience from the operating room to the board room,” Frederick said. “Being in charge of the team, making sure everybody contributes, making sure everybody’s appreciated when they do contribute, making sure you intervene on crises.”

Shortly after his interim CEO tenure, ACS announced a new investment of $43.2 million in cancer research grants, with awards that went into effect Sept. 1, 2025, or would begin in the weeks and months that followed. Altogether, ACS is funding 92 new grants at 69 institutions across the country, achievements all under Frederick’s stewardship.

Yet when asked about his greatest achievement, Frederick emphasized something that can’t be captured by a dollar figure alone: culture. While cancer is a scientific and financial challenge, it is also a human one shaped by whether systems treat patients and communities with dignity. He found that in a mission-driven organization like ACS, the infrastructure determines whether excellence is repeatable and whether people can sustain the work.

“ACS has great people, and I think I was able to get them to appreciate the great people that they have,” Frederick said. “Evolving and making [ACS] even better meant ensuring that the effort to get better never gets blunted when you’re already doing good.”

Frederick’s return to Howard after leading a national organization like ACS reframes the idea of “interim” leadership. His service — at ACS, Howard, and myriad service organizations across America — underscores what the university has long been chartered to do: educate, advance knowledge that improves lives, and serve as a trusted voice for those often underserved.

For Frederick, interim stewardship is not a pause; it represents a responsibility to strengthen an institution’s systems, people, and momentum.

“You have to keep the organization moving, so that it is a great place to come to work,” Frederick said. “You should never just be in a holding pattern, trying to keep the stewardship of something for somebody else to come into. You should constantly be trying to move it forward.”