Charlotte, NC — Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP is pleased to announce that Olabisi Ajao graduated on July 25 from the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance’s Emerging Business Leaders (EBL) program. Olabisi was part of the 12th cohort of the program, which aims to enhance leadership capabilities and connect high potential, diverse professionals from across the Charlotte region.
Over the past seven months, Olabisi and her cohort participated in several sessions dedicated to topics like leading with personality, ethical leadership, polarity management, corporate board governance, and how companies can effectively use artificial intelligence. The class also got a firsthand look at the operations of some of Charlotte’s most recognizable employers and institutions like UNC Charlotte and the NASCAR Hall of Fame and met some of the executive and board leaders tasked with leading those institutions.
The program’s 50 participants ranged from professionals across a broad spectrum of industries, such as health care, retail, banking, and higher education.
Olabisi’s capstone group project was to identify a leader in a for-profit and nonprofit organization in the region and interview them about their career journey and what leadership means to them. The leaders showed how they transfer skills the EBL cohort learned through the program into their work styles. As their for-profit leader, Olabisi’s group chose a corporate governance and compliance executive at a Fortune 100 company who shared his insight on how leadership programs help create more well-rounded leaders focused not only on corporate stewardship, but on community as well. For their nonprofit leader, Olabisi’s group chose a leader at Envision Charlotte. The group focused on Envision Charlotte’s latest project, Innovation Barn, which is a joint initiative with the city of Charlotte to transition the city to a circular economy. The model is based on reusing and regenerating materials or products to continue production in a sustainable way.
Over the past seven months, Olabisi was able to effectively grow her professional network while learning more about the community in which she serves, works, and lives. Through her involvement with the EBL program, Olabisi has not only become a more effective leader, communicator, and team member, but she was also able to forge meaningful relationships within the Charlotte business community.
At Parker Poe, Olabisi is a business and contracts attorney with an emphasis on the education industry. She focuses her practice on advising K-12 schools, colleges, and universities on education policy and operational and transactional issues.
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Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP has more than 275 lawyers in eight offices in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Washington, DC. The firm provides legal counsel to many of the largest companies and local governments in the Southeast.
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