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ROB LALKA
Director
Rob Lalka leads partnership development and advises on technology strategies to empower communities in pursuit of the common good.
Rob is Professor of the Practice at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business and the Executive Director of the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Prior to Tulane, he served as Director of Strategy and Partnerships at Propeller, a New Orleans-based startup accelerator and community development fund. He served in that same role at Village Capital, a global startup accelerator and seed fund.
Rob moved to New Orleans from Washington, DC, where he was a senior advisor at the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and a Presidential Management Fellow in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Partnerships. He also served on the Secretary of State’s policy planning staff, where he coauthored the president’s cross-sector partnerships strategy. Rob graduated from Yale University, cum laude, and earned a Master of Public Policy from Duke University. He, his wife, and their son reside in New Orleans' Broadmoor neighborhood, where he serves as a Commissioner for the Broadmoor Improvement Association.