Ancella Livers, Ph.D
Executive Director
1001 N. Fairfax Street, Suite 300
Alexandria, VA 22314
Dr.Livers is the Executive Director of the Institute for Leadership Development & Research at the Executive Leadership Council in Alexandria, Virginia. As Executive Director, Dr. Livers is responsible for implementing development programs to enhance the leadership capabilities of African-American executives and managers. These programmatic initiatives enable executives to increase their respective business’ competitive advantage and uniquely lead “positive change” in their organizations and society as a whole. In addition to the programmatic components of Dr. Livers’ executive directorship, she is also responsible for establishing the Institute as the nation’s premier institution for research on African-American executives and managers. Her research agenda includes both macro and micro level initiatives,which leverage the ELC’s unique position in the market. To broaden the impact of the Institute, Dr. Liver selects and works closely with world class faculty and staff, integrating their unique skills and abilities into the overarching developmental schematic of the ELC™.
Prior to joining the Executive Leadership Council, Dr. Livers was the Group Director of Global Open Enrollment at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®). In this role, she oversaw the management of CCL’s flagship offering the Leadership Development Program (LDP®) as well the other 14 programs in their portfolio. Under Dr. Livers’s leadership, CCL’s Open Enrollment programs ranked #6 in the world as rated by the Financial Time. During her years at CCL, Dr. Livers directly managed 7 programs including LDP®, the African-American Leadership Program, and the Women’s Leadership Program. She also designed and delivered customized programs to meet the developmental needs of senior managers for client organizations. She is a much sought after facilitator and has served as a feedback coach to numerous senior-level executives.
Dr. Livers’s distinguished career includes an assistant professorship in the School of Journalism at West Virginia University and service as the acting business editor and Capitol Hill reporter for the Gannett News Service. Dr. Livers was also a regular guest on the Baltimore public affairs television show, Urban Scene.
Dr. Livers holds a B.S. in Mass Communications from Hampton Institute, a M.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Carnegie Mellon. She is coauthor of the book Leading in Black and White: Working across the Racial Divide in Corporate America and of the HBR article, “Dear White Boss.” Most recently, she has written a chapter “Coaching People of Color,” which appears in The CCL Handbook of Coaching: A Guide for the Leader Coach and she has written the essay “Black Women in Management” published in Vol.1 of the three volume set of Gender, Race, & Ethnicity in the Workplace.
