About Dami

Damilola Akinyele-Wolfgarten is an international development and nonprofit leader with more than 14 years of experience supporting youth leadership, women's empowerment, and education across over 40 countries. Her work connects education, policy, and innovation, helping organizations and communities design solutions that are relevant, sustainable, and inclusive.

Damilola has managed international programs and partnerships across the United States, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Her experience spans leadership development, equity, organizational strategy, and education. She has worked with governments, foundations, and corporations to strengthen institutions and empower leaders.

From 2021 to 2025, she served as Executive Director of Princeton in Africa, where she led the organization’s strategic direction, governance, and operations. During her tenure, she secured 3 million dollars in new funding, deepened donor partnerships, and advanced long-term sustainability. She also launched the Nexus Program, an Africa based co-fellowship initiative that pairs African Fellows and United States educated Fellows within leading African institutions to promote mutual learning, shared leadership, and equitable partnerships in global development.

In recent years, she has provided vision and leadership on social justice, equity, and inclusion practices for 38 faith-based nonprofits in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Africa, managing a 2-million-dollar operational budget. She directed fundraising strategy and exceeded donations revenue in 2019 and 2020.

At World Learning, she designed and implemented programs that advanced United States Department of State objectives on education and exchange, managed special envoy programs in more than 160 countries, and oversaw a 1.8-million-dollar grant in coordination with local partners and international government entities. From 2016 to 2018, she designed and implemented educational learning experiences for Iraqi Young Leaders focused on peacebuilding, reconciliation, youth activism, and civic engagement. She supported the reintegration of refugees and internally displaced persons and managed professional development for a network of more than 2,000 alumni. During her time at World Learning, she also co-chaired and helped launch the organization’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Taskforce, leading strategy and implementation across departments.

Through the years, Damilola has consulted with the Ministry of Education in Nigeria, where she hosted youth leadership and teacher training workshops and developed active learning strategy manuals that were integrated into state curriculums. She has also worked with IREX, where she designed research-based toolkits on gender and technology that were used to train teachers from 13 countries.

Earlier in her career, Damilola worked with DLA Piper in Baltimore, supporting legal teams on administrative and research projects. As a Teaching and Research Assistant at Morgan State University, she facilitated adult learning and supported a sociology professor on published research.

As the founder of ETRAssociates, Damilola designs education and leadership programs in Nigeria that are grounded in research, community context, and long term impact. She has also shared her expertise through lectures and facilitation with the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, the German Development Agency (GIZ), George Washington University, and the African Union Development Agency.

Damilola holds a Master’s degree in International Training and Education from American University in Washington DC and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Morgan State University. She is currently completing the Implementing Public Policy Executive Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

She enjoys spending time with her family, reading, traveling, engaging in politics, attending the theater, canoeing, and good coffee.