Leadership to Unlock Human Potential, Leading Organizational Cultural Change, and Crisis Leadership Management

Serving as VP for Learning and Leadership Development at United Way Worldwide, Dr. Wesley leads leadership development for approximately 30,000 staff in 36 countries across 1100 offices.This role involves overseeing leadership development initiatives that equip leaders (emerging to Executive) with the skills and knowledge necessary to address complex challenges and build resilient communities. The Next-Generation Leaders Initiative, infused by Strategic Foresight, is designed to prepare future leaders to anticipate change and navigate it with clarity, agility, humility, respectful collaboration, and ethics. From the individual learner to organizational culture building, I am working at the nexus of reactivity and reflectful, intentional leadership that helps leaders be equipped to guide their teams and organizations through uncertainty with clarity of values and purpose.

Leadership to Unlock Human Potential:

• Developed the Next-Generation Leaders Initiative, creating space for non-profit leaders (high potential under 40 and those you have not yet been recognized as high potential) to think more creatively, with greater focus and intent, nurturing a growth mindset for themselves and others. As a result Next-Gen Leaders are implementing innovative and scalable demonstration projects that grow personal leadership skills to meet the needs of their communities and are transforming how their United Ways work on a daily basis (2024-Present)
• Across our industries, Learning Leaders have the power to support all staff to be more resilient in challenging times. Staff have personal crises; organizations are facing new opportunities and challenges with AI adoption and workforce transformation. Leaders are in the middle and it can all feel too much, especially as we seek to lead organizational change. Neuroscientist Mary Murphy has reframed the Fixed and Growth Mindset not as a binary concept, but as a Growth Mindset Continuum in which each of us can be triggered into a fixed or growth mindset. This is a cornerstone leadership learning at United Way that we use to promote self-reflection and empathy for ourselves and the people we lead so that we recognize what activates a fixed mindset within us and others and which tools we can use to pivot, learn and grow as leaders for ourselves and our teams.

Leading Organizational Culture Change:

• Led the partnership of three competing organizations to develop a $59M government funded international program, moving them from competitition to collaboration to co-ownership and shared investment in success (2008-2010). 
• Established the Office of Staff Learning & Development for the U.S. Peace Corps, growing use of LMS from 4 countries in 2017 to 65 by 2024 and leading completion of staff Compliance Training from 60-90%. Establishing the first agency-wide Learning Council and global learning needs assessment with a 80% completion rate (2022)

Crisis Management Leadership:

• Oversighted safety and security training for organizational leaders and staff in 26 countries (2006-2015) across Pacific, Southeast Asia, Middle East and Africa.
• Led the Overseas Staff Training (Functional and Leadership) for the U.S. Peace Corps for 8 years, integrating experiential learning, peer-to-peer learning, and on-demand learning in four 120-hour tracks (Medical, Financial, Program Managemetn & Training and Finance) for 100+ global leaders annually from across 65 countries.