Rose Miller, management consultant and executive coach, has died at 80

Rose S. Miller, 80, of Philadelphia, an organizational consultant and executive coach with a love for the arts and travel, died at her home Thursday, March 16, due to Alzheimer’s disease.

Born in Richmond, Va., to Myrtle Crump and Clarence Sallee, Mrs. Miller was raised by her mother at her maternal grandparents’ home after her father died when she was 2.

As a student studying industrial design, speech and drama at Hampton University, Mrs. Miller was noted as a brilliant student actress in productions including MacBeth and J.B. by playwright Archibald MacLeish. After college, she moved to New Haven, where she worked as an assistant director at the Girls Residential Youth Center, funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). During her time at the center, she met her husband, the Rev. Isaac Miller, who was also working there. The two married in 1970.

Her husband spoke of his first impression of Mrs. Miller: “The thing that hit me the most clearly is that this is a sophisticated sister — she’s got some awareness of herself. And plus, she was good looking,” he said with a chuckle.

Mrs. Miller went on to earn her master’s degree from the University of Connecticut. After her time as a staffer at Tavistock Group Public Relations Conference at Vassar College, her career as an organizational consultant and executive coach blossomed. She helped people work through challenges faced by organizations and leaders, with clients including the Ford Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and a consortium of Black public broadcasting stations.

When their daughter Klancy Miller was 4 years old, the couple moved from New Haven to Atlanta, and later to Philadelphia in 1986.

While Mrs. Miller was in Atlanta, her passion for exercise led her to create a workout mat called Asseyez-Vous! She took group aerobic classes where the mats used were too bulky for her liking, so she got creative and designed her own with a little bag for easy carrying.

“Basically she was fulfilling her own need to have something that she could carry around and do floor workout stuff on — this is before yoga mats became the thing,” said her daughter, a well-known food writer and cookbook author.

Mrs. Miller made the mats by hand for family and friends and worked with a manufacturer to distribute further before going on to pursue other projects.

Mrs. Miller was a lover of the performing arts and interior design with an eye for details. Her daughter remembers an Easter basket her mother made for her complete with a patch of homegrown grass to “make it look just right.”

Mrs. Miller also mentored talented high school students in Philadelphia and later created scholarships for them to go to college.

“She was very, very special,” Klancy Miller said. “The most generous person I’ve ever known, and I’m just gonna say the most awesome person. She was loving, smart, beautiful, and stylish.”

Mrs. Miller traveled to Egypt, Nigeria, Spain, Italy, Germany, South Africa, England, the Netherlands, and France for work. She collected art in her travels, including textiles and artifacts from South Africa and art pieces from Latin America.

In 2019, Mrs. Miller was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. “Even after her diagnosis, she led an active life — going out to restaurants with family, going on family vacations, and seeing shows on Broadway,” her daughter said.

She began hospice care at home in March 2023. About three weeks before her death, Mrs. Miller turned 80, and celebrated surrounded by loved ones, with cupcakes and dancing to “All I Do” by Stevie Wonder.

“We were dancing, slow dancing,” her daughter said. “A friend came over and was dancing with my mom and I videotaped it. Unfortunately, later that day she had to go to the hospital and that kind of was the beginning of the nosedive, but she was up and dancing until the very end.”

In addition to her husband and daughter, Mrs. Miller is survived by a half-sister..

The funeral was held at the Memorial Church of the Good Shepherd on April 8.

Donations in her name may be made to the Church of the Advocate or to the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement.