Joining INP in January 2023.

Obenewa Amponsah joins INP with over twenty years of professional experience in Africa and North America where, in addition to other roles, she served as CEO of the Steve Biko Foundation and as an Executive Director of the Harvard University Center for African Studies.

As Managing Director, Black Leadership Institute, Obenewa will represent INP’s newest program — which was publicly announced in December 2021 — on a national scale and be responsible for its overall quality, impact, and growth. Set to begin in January 2023, the BLI program seeks to connect, inspire, and uplift Black leaders in the social sector and actively contribute to the building of Black power, influence, and wealth. Through transformative programming, BLI supports Black leaders with the resources, network, content, and community needed to build upon their social, financial, knowledge, and cultural capital as they step into positions of greater power and influence.

Beyond the nonprofit and academic arenas, Obenewa has extensive experience in the private sector and development attained during her time as a Senior Consultant with GoodWorks International, and through her tenure at the African Presidential Archives & Research Center, an institution dedicated to chronicling democratic transitions in Africa. In 2019, she founded Obenewa Amponsah & Associates (OAA), a boutique training and development organization that supports personal, professional, and social change. Obenewa’s guiding ethos is that collectively, individuals, teams, and communities have the resources necessary to develop and achieve a vision that produces better outcomes for all.

Obenewa is a Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Institute at Oxford University and an alumna of the Atlantic Fellowship for Racial Equity. She is a Trustee of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and serves on the Board of the US Chapter of the African Women’s Development Fund. A certified coach, Obenewa is also a member of Coaches and Mentors South Africa as well as the International Coaching Federation.

Of Ghanaian descent, Obenewa was born and raised in the Baltimore-Washington DC area. She holds an undergraduate degree from Boston University and a master’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, where she is currently pursuing her doctorate in African Literature. Obenewa’s research focuses on the intellectual histories and activism of Black women.

On the personal front, Obenewa is a frequent traveler, collects African textiles, usually sings off-key, and has rarely met a book she didn’t like.