Dean's Advisory Council
Roland Parrish
President, CEO, and Owner
Parrish McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd.
Parrish is currently CEO of Parrish Restaurants, Ltd, which owns and operates 26 restaurants in Dallas and surrounding areas. The Dallas Business Journal ranks his company the 2nd Largest Black Owned Firm in North Texas in 2021. In 2017, Parrish received the Dallas Business Journal’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Parrish Restaurants, Ltd consistently makes the Black Enterprise BE 100 as one of the Top 100 Black Owned Businesses in the United States.
Roland’s $2M Leadership Gift supported the renovation of the former Management School Library at Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana. It was opened and renamed the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management and Economics in 2012. It’s the first facility at Purdue to be named after an African American.
Also, his gift of philanthropy led to the building of the Rev. John and Marie Parrish Medical Clinic in Fort Portal, Uganda. The clinic, which opened in May of 2016, serves 6,000 orphans per year, and is named in memory of his parents.
Parrish serves on the Board of Trustees of Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee, where the completion of the
Parrish Career and Development Center opened this year.
Also, he currently serves on the NBA Dallas Mavericks Advisory Board, the Salvation Army Advisory Board,
MLB Texas Rangers Foundation – A Heart for Kids and the Texas Restaurant Association.
Parrish is the 2nd largest investor for the restructuring of the Re-Imaging Red Bird Project which will bring a
Marriot Hotel and hundreds of jobs to the Red Bird community. Also, it will include almost 250,000 sq ft
of medical/clinical services to the southern sector (Parkland Hospital and UT Southwestern Medical Center).
It was the Dallas Business Journal’s, 2020 Best Real Estate Deal of the Year.
Roland received his BS and MBA from Purdue’s Krannert School of Business. As a scholar and athlete,
he consistently made the Dean’s List, was a 2-time MVP of the Purdue track team and selected
by his teammates to be Captain his senior year.
He and wife, Jewel, have two adult children. Son, Ro (UNT-BA 02’) and Daughter, Jade (Purdue-BA 12’ and SMU-MBA 22’).