Last week, we were able to attend the annual American Express Leadership Academy Global Alumni Summit. The event, held in New York City April 16-17, brought together more than 90 Leadership Academy Alumni and partners from around the globe. The summit focused on discussing leadership in times of transition and building skills critical to continued collaboration and relationship-building in a shifting sector.
As part of its greater family of leadership development programs, American Express Leadership Academy is the generous funder of Independent Sector’s own American Express NGen Fellows program. Working with American Express to bring a global audience together last week in New York was organizing partner Atlas Corps. In addition to being an IS member as an organization, Atlas Corps’s founder, Scott Beale, is an NGen Fellows program alum.
A major highlight of this year’s summit featured Angela Fernandez of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, and was moderated by Chronicle of Philanthropy Managing Editor Dan Parks. This Q&A session showcased Angela’s expertise and background in immigrant rights, grassroots mobilization, and invited commentary from summit attendees and the online audience through Twitter. Angela spoke from her first-generation immigrant narrative, and touched upon how the current, shifting political landscape is both similar and different since the massive IIRAIRA immigrant law changes of 1996.
Participants of this year’s Summit also had a chance to stretch their creative muscles. Monica Kang, founder and CEO of Innovators Box, shared some practical and relatable ways for summit participants to tap into the power of creativity to advance their mission. You can check out her formula for creativity and other quotes and exercises for thinking outside the box in the image below:
During the Summit, Carlos Lejneiks, president and CEO of Big Brothers & Big Sisters (BBBS) of Essex, Hudson and Union Counties was announced as the winner of the 2018 American Express Leadership Academy Alumni Award. The Alumni Award recognizes outstanding leadership among leadership academy alumni. Within four years of taking leadership of the organization, Carlos expanded BBBS programming from serving 100 youth to serving more than 1,000. The organization has also received numerous awards and recognition for its outstanding service. As part of the Award, Carlos’s organization will receive a grant of $25,000 to support its mission.
Want to learn more about our partnership with the American Express Leadership Academy? Check out some of these resources:
- Visit leaderstories.org for a recording of the conversation between Angela Fernandez and Dan Parks, intros of alumni delegates, and more about Leadership Academy partners.
- Read about the Alumni Award Finalists and the Alumni Award winner Carlos Lejnieks
- Follow #amexleads on Twitter for latest happenings in the Leadership Academy community
In addition to funding our American Express NGen Fellows program, American Express also supports our NGen Leadership Award, which is given annually to a transformative leader age 40 or younger. Nominations for this year’s NGen Award opened yesterday. Visit the award’s page to learn more and nominate a great changemaker for this career-defining award!
