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A conversation with Ellen Pratt-Harris and Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr on rebuilding institutions, restoring trust and leading national reconstruction, moderated by Uduak Amimo.
Cost: Free to all. Sponsored by Global Voices, an initiative of ILA’s Leadership Development Member Community.
- 12 October, 12 pm EDT (UTC-4)
Leaders around the world are navigating fractured societies, declining trust in institutions, climate shocks, economic uncertainty, and deep political polarization. While these challenges take different forms across countries, they raise common questions: How do leaders restore confidence when trust has been broken? How do they create hope when resources are scarce and expectations are high? And what does it take to build legitimate, inclusive and effective institutions?
Liberia and Sierra Leone have spent more than two decades addressing these questions in the aftermath of devastating civil wars. Their experiences offer lessons that extend far beyond post-conflict settings, challenging conventional ideas about leadership and demonstrating that rebuilding societies requires the ability to foster trust, strengthen social cohesion, and inspire collective action in addition to technical expertise.
Join Ellen Pratt-Harris, the Executive Director of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development and former deputy minister for urban planning, and Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Mayor of Freetown and a global leader in urban innovation and climate action, for a conversation about leading through complexity. Drawing on their leadership journeys, they will reflect on the realities of rebuilding institutions, empowering communities, and creating lasting change in environments where there are no easy answers.
Participants will:
- Challenge conventional ideas about leadership by exploring why rebuilding trust and social cohesion is just as important as rebuilding infrastructure and economies.
- Discover how leaders create hope and legitimacy in societies emerging from conflict, where citizens often have little confidence in public institutions.
- Consider what it takes to lead amid competing priorities, limited resources, and the pressure to deliver visible change.
- Reflect on how these lessons apply beyond post-conflict settings, from organizations navigating disruption to communities facing polarization, climate shocks, and institutional decline.
Whether you lead in government, business, higher education, or civil society, this webinar offers an opportunity to engage with leadership experiences that challenge assumptions and offer timely lessons for leading in a fragmented world.
Ellen Pratt-Harris is the Executive Director of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development in Liberia. An urban planner with more than 25 years of experience in governance and public service, she has served as Deputy Minister for Urban Affairs, Deputy Minister for Industry/Inspector General, Commissioner for Land Use and Management, and Urban Planning Advisor to the City of Monrovia.
Ellen has led national urban policy reforms and major development initiatives in partnership with international organizations. She is the founding principal of PratCo Development Group, one of Liberia’s few female-owned urban development firms. She holds a Bachelor of Environmental Design in Architecture from North Carolina State University and a Master of City and Regional Planning from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Uduak Amimo (Moderator) is the founder of Asanama Leadership, where she works with leaders and organisations to strengthen how leadership is experienced through communication, the responsible exercise of power, and cultures of belonging and performance.
An executive coach, leadership development facilitator and organisational psychology practitioner, she brings nearly 30 years of experience spanning journalism, broadcasting, strategic communication and leadership development. Before founding Asanama Leadership, she worked with Reuters, the Voice of America, the BBC and Citizen TV Kenya, and moderated Kenya’s first presidential debate in 2013.
Uduak holds master’s degrees in Business and Organisational Psychology (Steinbeis University, Germany) and in Communication and Public Affairs (American University, US). She has an undergraduate degree in International Relations (USIU-A, Kenya). She is a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader, Tutu Fellow, Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa Leadership Fellow, Bosch Alumni Network Fellow, Boehm Media Fellow and Global Social Impact Fellow. She is also the founder of The Comms Table and host of the Fearless with Uduak Amimo podcast. She is the Global Voices Africa Region Coordinator for the International Leadership Association.
