Presenter Details

Hart Associate Professor of the Practice, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke

Alexandra Emmanuelle Zagbayou is a practitioner-scholar, nonprofit strategist, and organizational consultant committed to strengthening how institutions are designed, governed, and led. She serves as Hart Associate Professor of the Practice at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and as a Faculty Affiliate with the Center for the Study of Philanthropy and Voluntarism. At Duke, she teaches Women as Leaders and Leading In and With Community, guiding students to connect theory with lived experience while developing as values-driven leaders. Alexandra was part of the founding team of Student U, a Durham-based nonprofit dedicated to college access and youth development and later served as its Executive Director. Over more than a decade, she helped grow the organization, led a debt-free $11 million capital project, and guided its transition to a people-of-color-led governance model. She also founded AnchorED Coaching and Consulting, where she partners with nonprofit executives and boards to build adaptive capacity, inclusive cultures, and resilient leadership. She earned her B.A. in International Studies and Socioeconomic Justice from UNC-Chapel Hill and Master's of Industrial-Organizational Psychology from the Harvard Extension School. Her current focus centers on how leaders are trained and supported, with particular attention to the leadership experiences of women of color in nonprofit executive roles. When she is not teaching, coaching or consulting, Alexandra hosts a supper club in her home, dances to the sound of the djembe on Saturday mornings, watches DPS school board meetings, sends her friends random memes she finds on Instagram, and travels to be with her family in Abidjan and Montreal. Alexandra is a proud immigrant from the Ivory Coast, child of a first-generation college student and the second of seven children. She dedicates her work to her parents, Safi Lufuma and Gregoire Zagbayou, lifelong public servants who gave her the world.