Larry Carroll, Founder and Chairman of Chatsworth Henderson Capital, brings the global perspectives and integrity of an award-winning network broadcast journalist together with the analytical skills of a trained economist and businessman to the field of commodities trading.
For 40 years one of the most recognized and respected figures in Los Angeles radio and television news, Carroll returned to radio as News Anchor at CBS Radio’s KFWB News 980 joining television news colleague, co-anchor Tracey Savage on September 11, 2001, driven by a need to serve the community in a national emergency. He remained with CBS Radio News until his retirement from broadcasting in late 2008.
After leaving the anchor chair at KCBS-TV, Los Angeles in 1999, Carroll took on a challenging position as Executive Vice Chairman and co-founder of One Origin Inc., in Beverly Hills in the development and financing of infrastructure development projects in the developing world, notably in Africa. In 2003, Carroll co-founded Focal Point Media, LLC to provide strategic media planning and consulting services and produce and distribute television, Internet, and radio programs including, “The Turning Point Business Minute.” In February 2007, Carroll was recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Los Angeles Minority Business Development Agency as Small Business Media Advocate of the Year.
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Carroll came to California to stay in 1968, a freshman at Pomona College. His first job came two summers earlier when a Hollywood producer spotted him observing on a set and a short time later hired him as an Associate Producer on one Music television series, “Groovy” and Assistant Producer on another, “Boss City” for then KHJ-TV Channel 9.
Carroll’s commitment to community and humanity had already been well ingrained. Brought up by parents deeply committed to the civil rights struggle, Carroll spent his teen years working and marching alongside such legends of the movement as C.T. Vivian, Ralph David Abernathy, Dr. Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson.
While in college, it was Carroll’s production company that recorded the weekly community meetings of Operation Breadbasket. When Carroll became News Director and Program Director of KSPC-FM, the radio station of Pomona College, he also carried the title of West Coast Press Secretary for the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Soon he was named to produce the organization’s radio program on KJLH and not long thereafter was hired to anchor the news. Two years later, when White House Communications Director Herb Klein called him to serve, he would become the only man on the planet to serve in the press offices of both Jesse Jackson and President Richard Nixon. Following his White House assignment, Carroll returned to radio as Assistant News Director of XPRS Radio and West Coast Bureau Chief of the Mutual Black Network.
In 1972, Carroll joined KABC-TV, Channel 7 in Los Angeles beginning a run that lasted 17 years. During that time, he anchored nearly every broadcast on the station, while becoming well known for effective, introspective, and fair reporting. Carroll became synonymous with the station’s commitment to live news coverage as Anchor of the “Live Action Camera Desk” and Senior Night Side Correspondent for the 11 pm Eyewitness News.
In 1984 Carroll traveled to East Africa twice and returned with two watershed documentaries broadcast on ABC Television that brought the tragedy of the African Drought and famine to American viewers for the first time. His collaboration with World Vision and Black American Response to the African Crisis (BARAC) led to the donation of more than a Million Dollars to the relief effort and involved 53 core churches with such figures as Dick Gregory and Martin Luther King III. The “Love Returns” project was the beginning of a long and fruitful association with the people of the continent of Africa that led to other similar initiatives from Mozambique to Rwanda and later Liberia, among others.
By the time he left Channel 7 to help create a new Prime Time television news format for Disney-owned KCAL Channel 9, Carroll had won an NAACP Image Award Nomination for his work in Africa, and Emmy nominations for reporting on gangs, business, entertainment, and breaking news; this, in addition to countless awards and commendations from government agencies, community organizations, and schools for his contributions to the life of the Greater Southern California community.
At Channel 9, Carroll was named Anchor of the station’s popular 9 pm news through the course of Operation Desert Storm. In addition, he wrote, produced, directed, and hosted an ambitious 90-minute town hall/documentary special called “Legacy of a Movement”. “Legacy” brought to the screen the compelling stories of the sons and daughters of some of the best-known figures of the Civil Rights Movement. Because of his broad experience in Africa, Carroll also played a major role in the station’s aggressive and award-winning coverage of the conflict in Somalia.
After a major relief and development agency selected him to shoot yet another overseas documentary, this time in Mozambique, Carroll was named West Coast Correspondent for NBC Nightly News. At NBC, Carroll covered stories in a territory stretching from Denver to Hawaii and Alaska to Central America appearing on network television more than all but 17 correspondents in the world.
Carroll returned to local news in Los Angeles in 1995 to Anchor the 5 pm evening news alongside Linda Alvarez where he remained until mid-1999.
While building an impressive career in broadcast news, Carroll also built a parallel career as a producer of cutting-edge programming, creating, among other things, television’s first send-up of the Disco era, “Discothèque America” in 1976, the first-ever Jazz Cruise and with it the first television program ever produced entirely at sea, “Celebrity Showboat” in 1982. Two years earlier, Carroll wrote the business plan for what would become the publicly traded Urban America Television Network (UATV) and for the National Satellite Television System, the precursor for “On-Demand” satellite-delivered television programming. In 1991, Carroll created “Festival XXV” a festival of world music expressly for the Barcelona Olympics. In 2005/06 Carroll produced, wrote, and directed “Julia Wilson: On the Continent” the first African weekly information magazine series to be produced and broadcast in primetime on three continents: North America, Europe, and Africa.
A winner of the coveted Broadcast Emmy Award, Carroll has also earned an NAACP Image Award nomination, six Emmy nominations, seven Golden Mike Awards, an Associated Press Award as Anchor of the Best 30 Minute News Broadcast, the 20th Anniversary Award for Journalistic Excellence from the Congressional Black Caucus and the Grand Award of the National Association of Black Journalists for Excellence in International Reporting.
Carroll, who has reported from 10 African countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Mozambique, is a frequent keynote speaker and serves on the Boards of the African Rim Institute, Only Nature’s Finest, Inc., International Ocean Logistics, Maveric Oil & Gas, The Luongo Foundation and R.J. Nelson, Inc. Carroll holds a BA in Economics from Pomona College in Claremont, California and currently serves as Chairman of Commodity Exchange Associates.
For additional information on Mr. Carroll, please visit his LinkedIn page.