GUEST SPEAKERS

… is the Founder and Principal of Axle Impact Studio. As a strategist and author, she focuses on decolonizing development efforts through the redirection of capital, cultural influence, and opportunity. She has worked across eight countries to maximize corporate impact, seed public innovation in post-colonial states, design support for Black and Indigenous entrepreneurs, and inform equitable strategies for organizational leaders. Her publications on entrepreneurial ecosystem development, culturally-relevant approaches to public health outreach, and transnational racial equity span Georgetown University’s Institute of Technology Law and Policy, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy (previously as Editor-in-Chief). She also serves as a Global Fellow for the Atlantic Institute and previously as an Inclusive Innovation Fellow at Georgetown Law, Senior Fellow at Humanity in Action, and Innovation Fellow for the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University. Recognized as a 31 Under 31 for the Future of Venture Capital, an Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity, a Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum, and advisor to the UN Women/WE Empower Initiative, Dela is a graduate of Georgetown University (JD), Harvard University (MPA), and Spelman College (BA, summa cum laude, phi beta kappa). Aside from Axle, she’s staging interiors, tracing her mother’s lineage through Greenville, Alabama, and learning how to cook gumbo.