LaTeashia Sykes

Serves on the Board of Trustees for World Neighbors, an international development organization focused on community-centered eradication of poverty through climate, financial, and gender equity programs.

• Chairs Resource Development and Communications Committee focused on increasing funding and organizational visibility through marketing and communications strategies.

• Member of the Finance Committee, responsible for monitoring the organization’s financial standing.

Directed interagency coordinating body for federal executives in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Managed highly sensitive and controversial matters to resolution while facilitating federal and local collaboration on policies, programs, and goals.

•  Restored the Executive Board to operational status by applying structure, developing procedures, establishing trust, vision setting, and through the recruitment of key board positions.

• Applied change management concepts and principles to achieve participation, buy-in, and support from senior leaders and executives via strategic planning, one-on-one engagement calls, and the reestablishment of programs and committees. The efforts resulted in 192% increase in Executive Board participation

Monitored federal grants administered to state energy offices. As a member of the innovative and special projects team, identified technical assistance needs of grantees and developed strategies to address compliance and other challenges.

• Established the State Energy Program Equity Workgroup, which identified gaps between directives under the President’s Executive Orders on equity and compliance and delivery on those matters.

• Served as Community Energy Planning lead for the identification and delivery of technical assistance for equity initiatives such as Justice40. Nationally collaborated with state energy officials to address challenges with maximizing grant funds in underserved communities.

Strategically directed a national office responsible for managing partnerships with 360 formal partners across 3 programs. Led staff to address agreement and technical assistance concerns while advising management through equity and change management concerns.  

• Optimized office performance by establishing standardized annual office plans and quarterly reviews tracking team progress toward mission goals. Results included an 83% increase in program participation over 4 years.

• Advised senior management on organizational development and change management strategies to address leadership turnover, remote work guidance, department reorganization, and staff retention. Supported executives through 5 leadership transitions while advancing partnership targets.

• Drove agency-wide working group to create an agency plan in compliance with the President’s executive order to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities through agency resources and programs. Delivered a comprehensive agency plan for 2 consecutive years and project managed actions toward completion and on deadline.

Cultivated relationships with prospective formal higher education partners. Reviewed and approved proposals and provided technical assistance and support to partners through the life of the 5-year agreement.

• As lead project manager, delivered calculated and strategic leadership for the retirement and closeout of the Peace Corps Master’s International partnership program for higher education institutions. This included collaboration with agency-wide colleagues and leadership, development of internal and external talking points, and delivery of technical assistance to stakeholders to successfully close the nearly 30-year-old program and its associated 96 memorandum of agreements.

• As project manager, successfully planned and executed the Coordinators Conference: a best practices event for 143 partners. This included assessing best practice needs of partners, establishing the conference project timeline, mission, goals, and objectives, liaising with contracting offices, administrators and vendors to address food, Audio/ Visual, event space, and lodging concerns. Uncovered errors in the event orders, saving the agency $10,000.

Strategically strengthened relationships with 64 statewide housing coalition partners, while expanding the partnership network in politically significant states. Provided direction to execute emerging legislative goals in a fast-past environment.

• Created strategies to advance NLIHC’s legislative, regulatory, and policy priorities through the engagement and mobilization of partner organizations. Provided direction to execute new or emerging goals in a fast-paced environment.

• Coordinated the distribution and management of the organization’s first grant program. This included setting program requirements, development of grant application templates and required reporting for 11 pass-through grants to statewide advocacy organizations.