About Dami
Damilola Akinyele is the Executive Director at Princeton in Africa where she leads the organization that develops young leaders of tomorrow as they contribute to some of the most impactful organizations in Africa today.
She is an International Training, Development, and Education Professional driven by quality education, social impact, inclusive and equitable projects, design, and innovation. She has spent her career cultivating strong leaders, strengthening institutions, and developing high-impact programs in Africa, the United States of America, the Middle East, and Asia.
Her professional experience spans over the course of 10 years, and Her donor experiences include the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Embassies, state and local governments in Nigeria, West Africa.
In her role as Executive Director of Princeton in Africa, she maintains a preeminent fellowship program that aligns with the core values of ethical and responsible engagement on the African continent, Management of Princeton in Africa Staff, Financial Oversight, Donor Relations, Development and Communications, and Board Governance.
In recent years, she has provided vision and leadership on social justice, equity, and inclusion practices for 38 faith-based non-profits in the U.S, the U.K., and Africa with a $2M monthly operational budget, managed fund-raising strategy, and exceeded donations revenue for 2019 & 2020 by 20% (LoveWorld,2019-2021); Designed program content and monitored implementation of programs related to the U.S. Department of State objectives on Education, Exchange, Managed U.S. Special Envoys Programs in 160+ countries, including coordinating with local partners, international government entities and direct oversight of a $1,8000,000 grant (World Learning,2018-2019); Designed and implemented educational learning experiences for Iraqi Young Leaders on peacebuilding and reconciliation, youth activism and civic engagement, reintegrating refugees and IDP’s, and managed continued professional development for a network of 2,000+ alumni (World Learning, 2016-2018). During her career at World Learning, she co-chaired and pioneered the Diversity, Equity, and inclusion Taskforce which managed the vision, strategy, and execution of the organization's DEI efforts.
Through the years, she has consulted with the Ministry of Education in Nigeria, hosted youth leadership and teacher training workshops, developed active learning strategy manuals integrated into state curriculums (MOE, 2016, 2020); Designed relevant, context-specific, research-based toolkits on gender and technology used to train teachers from 13 countries ( IREX, 2015); Managed administrative tasks for top lawyers in the country (DLA Piper, 2013-2014); Facilitated adult learning for college students, and provided research and administrative support to a sociology professor for a published research ( MSU, 2012-2013).
Damilola received her BA in Sociology from Morgan State University, and her MA in International Training and Education at American University, Washington, DC. As the founder of ETRAssociates, she applies her skills, knowledge and experiences to serving the Nigerian society by developing programs that are relevant, context specific, transformative, and sustainable.
Over the course of her life and work, Damilola hopes to contribute to building Education systems and furthering the development of African institutions and leadership. She enjoys family vacations, politics, reading, traveling, theater, canoeing, and coffee.