Ethiopian Legacy Professional Development & Consulting Firm

Afomia (Mia) Seleshi, M.B.A.

Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Ethiopian Legacy Professional Development & Consulting Firm

Mrs. Seleshi is also the Associate Director of Student Life in the MBA Student Affairs Office of the UCLA Anderson School of Management. At UCLA Anderson School of Management, Mrs. Seleshi serves as the point person for case and pitch competitions, consults all MBA professional student associations on all aspects of the association from strartegy to operations, and manages all major events for MBA Student Affairs. As the point person for case and pitch competitions, Mrs. Seleshi trains students to compete effectively and organizes competitions. Mrs. Seleshi earned her Executive M.B.A. from Loyola Marymount University in 2019 and a B.A. from University of California, Los Angeles in Communication Studies in 2011. She is honored to be realizing her dream of to transform lives in achieving independence, fostering entrepreneurship, and developing leaders globally through Ethiopian Legacy.

Wondwossen (Wonde) Z. Teka, M.B.A.

Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Ethiopian Legacy Professional Development & Consulting Firm

Before relocating to the U.S., Mr. Teka had a lustrous career as a management professor for ten years, first at Micro Link Information Technology College and then Admas University College in Addis Abeba, where he taught introduction to management, administrative business communication, human relations skills, administrative office management, office records management, and secretarial office procedures. Mr. Teka received his Executive MBA from Loyola Marymount University in 2020 and a BA from Addis Abeba University in 2000.

Hiwot Woldemariam

Director, Research and Development, Ethiopian Legacy Professional Development & Consulting Firm

After receiving her B.A. degree in Economics from Addis Abeba University, Mrs. Woldemariam went on to get her Masters in Public Policy from National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. Mrs. Woldemariam also went to University of Washington continuing education for Business Intelligence: Techniques for Decision Making. She studied Data Analysis (SSAS, PowerPivot, Pivot Tables), Data visualizing (Tableau, Power BI, SSRS, Excel), and Data Mining: (SSAS, predixion).

Bemnet Tesfaye

Director, Technology, Ethiopian Legacy Professional Development & Consulting Firm

Mr. Tesfaye is a software architect at Tableau. He loves to code and mentor future engineers. He is a Sunday School teacher, husband, and father of four.

Adene Wassie

Business Data Analytics Intern, Ethiopian Legacy Professional Development & Consulting Firm

Ms. Wassie is an educator specializing in the non-profit sector in the Greater-Seattle Area. With a B.S in Information Systems and Business Analytics, she wishes to merge her technological and outreach skills to assist in professional development using data.

Edjig (Gigi) Sellassie

Candidate & Membership Recruiting Intern, Ethiopian Legacy Professional Development & Consulting Firm

Ms. Sellassie is a published author and illustrator with a passion for graphic arts, animation and digital. She received her bachelor's degree in Visual Arts and is experienced with creating marketing material in various positions she's held including as an admissions design intern at William Jessup University.

Lissie Teferi Sellassie

Corporate Recruiting Intern, Ethiopian Legacy Professional Development & Consulting Firm

Ms. Sellassie is an undergraduate Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology major studying at the University of California Santa Cruz. She has previously worked as an intern at John Muir and is passionate about pursuing a career in healthcare. In her spare time, Ms. Sellassie likes to mentor for a language school and participate in church activities to help younger students.

Mickias (Mickey) Solomon

Vice President, JP Morgan & Chase

Mr. Solomon's areas of focus as an Ethiopian Legacy Industry Representative are Finance and FinTech. Mickias (Mickey) Solomon is a Vice President within the Finance & Business Management line of business at JP Morgan Chase & Co. Prior to his current role, he worked in Global Transaction Banking Strategy & Business Management as well as Transaction Banking Sales at MUFG Union Bank. Before that, he worked in San Francisco as an Associate at Bank of America providing treasury solutions to emerging technology companies. Mickey was part of the USC Marshall Venture Fund team where he worked with pre-seed startups and took on an active role in running due diligence for startups coming out of USC. Mickey is also an Angel Investor & Co-Founder of Silicon Beach Investment Group. The first democratized seed investment fund providing founders capital, collaboration, and community and seek to be early investors in the most innovative start-ups in Southern California and beyond. Mickey is passionate about FinTech startups that enable economic inclusion for underrepresented communities. His goal is to launch his own pre-seed investment fund that focuses on addressing financial inclusion and growth in the emerging markets. Mickey is an MBA graduate from the Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California and resides in Los Angeles, CA with his wife Veronica and his chocolate lab, Zoey.

Gelila Sebhatu

Adjunct Professor, Mount St. Mary's University and Owner / Strategic Advisor, GPS Management Consulting, Corp

Ms. Sebhatu has her own consulting company with over 15 years of business consulting experience serving the US Federal Government and Fortune 500 clients. Her company provides strategic and advisory services for the private and public sector building large-scale transformational efforts. She has developed various project management training programs and managed +50 people (various project managers and employees). She is also the Owner/ Head Coach of GPS Professional Coaching, which provides individuals and non-profit organizations career enhancement services. From 2014-2016 they were rated #1 on Yelp for career coaching in Arlington, VA. In 2016, she was interviewed by a national internet streaming program, Money For Lunch (parent company of Talk Radio); and she was quoted for her career tips in the Washingtonian Magazine December 2013 issue. For a period, she was also a contributing monthly blog author for InternMatch.com. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) in Management at Virginia Tech University, where she also obtained her Executive Master Business Administration (EMBA). Her Bachelor’s Degree is in Business Administration, Information Systems minor in Marketing from Old Dominion University. In addition, she holds a Project Management Professional (PMP), Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (LSSBB), and TOGAF® Level 2 certificate.

Yosias Tesfaye

Senior Business Development Manager, World Vision

Mr. Tesfaye represents three areas of focus as an Industry Representative for Ethiopian Legacy: leadership development, grant writing and global HR. Mr. Tesfaye is a results-oriented and multi-skilled international development and HR professional with over 18 years of diverse international experience that ranges across Business & Proposal Development, Strategic Human Resource Management, and Project Management in the international development, non-profit and corporate sectors.

Dagmawi Dawit

Tech Talent Consultant, Dunyasi Ventures and Transition Coach, Randstad Risesmart

Mr. Dawit's areas of focus as an Ethiopian Legacy Industry Representative are technology recruiting, coaching and human resources. Mr. Dawit connects, coaches and has a podcast. He is passionate about building the most effective workforce & vibrant Africa talent possible.

Eyerusalem Woldu

Venture Associate , TechStars and Portfolio Manager, Goodie Nation

Ms. Woldu's areas of focus as an Ethiopian Legacy Industry Representative is on tech startups, venture capital investment and small businesses. Eyerusalem Woldu is a Computer Engineering graduate, she started her entrepreneurial journey while she was still in school where she received an award from the Mayor of Jackson city. she has extensive experience working with multiple startups alongside running her Software Development agency business based out of Atlanta. Currently, she works within the venture capital industry as a venture associates with Techstars Accelerators and part-time as portfolio manager for Goodie Nation. She is an HBCUvc, Rebel One VC and BVCC fellow. She has built a wide range of relationships with the VC and Entrepreneurship community. She has helped multiple startups fundraise and has worked on multiple deals from sourcing, due diligence and presenting for an Investment committees. She is passionate about helping Ethiopians and people in general, she has created a community of Ethiopian Entrepreneurs facebook and clubhouse groups that have more than 1.5k members where she shares valuable information and resources for members.

Fikadu Alemayehu

Manager, YessEthiopia and Assistant Professor, Hawassa University

Mr. Alemayehu's areas of focus as an Ethiopian Legacy Industry representative are professional development, career management, and agriculture. Mr. Alemayehu is the founder and general manager of YessEthiopia, a nonprofit organization working towards youth empowerment and education quality. He is also a teaching faculty member at Hawassa University with more than 10 years experience in research and development project management.

Betelhem Gedlu

Intellectual Property and Technology Associate Lawyer , O’Melveny & Myers LLP

Ms. Gedlu is an IP litigation lawyer with an undergraduate degree in Computer Science, and a JD and an Intellectual Property and Technology Law Certificate from University of San Francisco School of Law. Before becoming a lawyer, Ms. Gedlu had worked as a paralegal that included leadership roles and that helped her prepare for her current role as an attorney. She has had so many great mentors in my life that helped her get where she is now and who continuously push her forward. As part of her motto in life, which is to pay it forward, she also wants to be able to mentor others in order to see them achieve their dreams.

Bereket Kelile

Life Coach and Financial Advisor, SmartPro Financial

Mr. Kelile's areas of focus as an Ethiopian Legacy Industry Representative are career management and finance. He has experience in and enjoys helping people clarify their vision and strategy for work, develop an empowered mindset, and create transformation.

Jay Jemal

Principal, Dallol Consulting Group

Mr. Jemal's areas of focus as an Ethiopian Legacy Industry Representative are: HealthTech, FinTech, EdTech, and AgriTech. Mr. Jay Jemal is senior technologist with over 20 years of consulting experience to fortune 100 companies and critical government agencies - CDC, CMS, FDA, and DoD. His experience includes team leadership, technical architecture and roadmap, developing technical solutions to solve business cases, led bid win theme strategy and delivering multimillion dollar value contracts to government clients. Mr. Jemal is the founder of Blucidy.io, a Blockchain-AI startup and Dallol Consulting Group, a boutique IT consulting firm based in Atlanta, GA. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and master’s in software engineering from University of Texas at Dallas. He is an engineering doctoral candidate at Morgan State University with concentration in cybersecurity, blockchain, and IoT. Mr. Jemal has been consulting at Center of Disease Control (CDC) for over a decade, advancing its surveillance strategic initiatives and data modernization initiatives over a decade. He is a Blockchain/distributed ledger technology expert. He has implemented Blockchain solutions for several government agencies such as HHS, CDC, NSF and DoD, to mention a few. He leads the architecture and implementation of the only CGI’s Blockchain IP based platform, Secure Data Fabric (SDF™), CGI’s first Blockchain/ML/AI IP commercial product (Patent issuer and number us 63054225). The CGI Secure Data Fabric (SDF™) ( https://www.cgi.com/us/en-us/federal/secure-data-fabric) provides an innovative secure mechanism for data access, data sharing, and data discovery - giving information seekers the insights they need and data owners control their data–without the need for a centralized single party-controlled data repository Mr. Jemal, as director of consulting expert, he directs the operations of multiple client engagements across multiple federal agencies. Responsible for overall technical architecture and strategy, leading application development teams, and operation teams. Leading solution innovation. Accountable for operational metrics, strategic SLAs, and client satisfaction.

Abinet Abate

Senior Product Manager, Microsoft

Mr. Abate's areas of focus as an Ethiopian Legacy Industry representative are technology and digital health. Mr. Abate is a product manager at Microsoft responsible for integrating application performance monitoring across Azure hosting environments and services. Prior to Microsoft, he served as product manager for cloud-based quality control informatics solutions at Bio-Rad serving 45 K laboratories worldwide to ensure the accuracy of patient lab results. Before Bio-Rad, Mr. Abate worked at Conifer Health Solutions and was responsible for web-based population health and utilization management products serving 5 million lives. Before becoming a Product Manager, Mr. Abate worked as a systems engineer in the legal technology industry. He’s also worked on malware protection product strategy at Cisco Systems.

Henok Mengistu

Head HR, Ethiopian Airlines Group

Mr. Mengistu's area of focus as an Ethiopian Legacy Industry Representative is Travel and Hospitality. Mr. Mengistu is a forward-thinking HR & Finance Manager/Head proficient in hiring, developing and motivating employees. He is well-versed in administering financial activities. Builds good relationship at all levels and resolves issues quickly. Mr. Mengistu oversees a well-organized and efficient HR processes by balancing organizational targets with compliance and section/unit/division demands. He is focused on human resource development & administration and enhancing performance with forward-thinking approaches.

Yamlaksira Getachew, M.B.A., Ph.D

Assistant Professor, International Business and Strategy, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles

Dr. Getachew earned his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Ivey Business School, Western University. He also holds an MBA from Addis Ababa University and a bachelor's degree in Business Management from Jimma University, Ethiopia. Dr. Getachew has over a decade of experience teaching business and management courses across several universities in Ethiopia, Canada, and USA. His research examines issues at the intersection of international business, institutions, and social welfare.

Robert (Bob) Clark, Ph.D

Adjunct Professor, Loyola Marymount University, Executive MBA

Bob has more than thirty years of technical, management and consulting experience in manufacturing, aerospace, and service environments ranging from startup to Fortune 50 public, private and non-profit organizations. He has held various program, technical and executive management positions with Boeing, Hughes, TRW, Citicorp and Olin Corp. Bob was most recently director of leadership development and culture in the Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS) Engineering organization. Bob is a Certified Quality Manager, Six-sigma Green Belt and Certified Mediator. He earned a BSEE, MSEE and Ph.D. from Purdue University.

Gayle Northrop, M.B.A.

Faculty, UCLA Anderson School of Management

Gayle Northrop is a consultant, coach and educator, and president of Northrop Nonprofit Consulting, a firm specializing in strategic planning, organizational development and leadership development for nonprofits, social enterprises and non-governmental organizations worldwide. With broad international experience, particularly in African countries, she has dedicated her career to helping organizations drive positive social change through strengthened systems, improved service delivery and more effective measurement and communication of impact. In addition to serving on the faculty of the UCLA Anderson School of Management, Northrop is adjunct faculty at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. Northrop serves on the boards of the UCLA Global Lab for Research in Action at the Luskin School, PATA (Paediatric & Adolescent AIDS Treatment for Africa) and Spark Health Africa. Northrop earned here MBA in 1996 from UCLA Anderson School of Management and a B.A. in Communications and American Studies in 1989 from Stanford University.

Sijun Wang, Ph.D

Professor of Marketing and Director of Master of Science of Business Analytics, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, College of Business Administration

Before joining the LMU faculty in 2010, Wang was an Associate Professor of Marketing at California State Polytechnic University. Wang also taught at Beijing Institute of Technology and the University of Alabama. Wang has authored and co-authored 12 books in English and Chinese. One of her most recent book was “Leading with Cultural Intelligence” by Beijing University Press (in Chinese). Her research focuses on services and frontline marketing issues. Wang has published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles, in journals such as Journal of Marketing, Organization Science, Journal of Service Research, and others. Currently her publications have generated 2000+ citations. University of Alabama Wang earned a Ph.D. in Marketing from University of Alabama in 2004, an M.S. in Statistics in 2002 from the University of Alabama, an M.S. in International Business from Wuhan Institute of Technology in 1995 and a B.S. in Economics in 1990 from Xi’An Jiaotong University.

Vandana Mangal, PhD

Clinical Associate Professor of Information Systems and Business Analytics, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, College of Business Administration

Professor Vandana (Ana) Mangal's academic experience includes working at UCLA Anderson School of Management, Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, and, Wisconsin School of Business, UW-Madison. At Pepperdine, she was Innovation Advisor to the Dean’s leadership team for strategic initiatives including program innovation and integration of 4IR (fourth industrial revolution) technologies. At UCLA, she led curriculum strategy, growth and corporate relations as Executive Director for the Easton Technology Management Center, leading to Easton becoming an endowed center. Dr. Mangal earned her Ph.D from Carnegie Mellon University in Management Information Systems, a Masters in Management Information Systems, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College.

Ken Deemer, M.B.A.

Managing Partner, Growth Leaders

Deemer served as General Partner of Interven Partners and was Co-Founder, Chairman, and President of the Tech Coast Angels, (www.techcoastangels.com), one of the largest and most active angel investor groups in the U.S. Deemer has partnered with leaders to build high impact organizations for more than 30 years – as a venture capitalist, board member, advisor and leadership coach. As a venture capitalist, he has more than 25 years of experience investing in and serving on the boards of several dozen companies. Ken holds BS degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MBA, with distinction, from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Abate O. Kassa

President, AOK Consulting & Education

Mr. Kassa is an author, consultant, and educator. He is a former procurement manager for Ethiopian Airlines, where he revitalized its employee suggestion system and also introduced a corporate-wide, value-improvement process after value-training its 343 management staff. Kassa gained experience in international public procurement working with the International Trade Centre/UNCTAD/WTO on a $1 billion import procurement project in Africa and also served as ITC consultant in the Pacific Forum Island Countries of Samoa, Kiribati, Tonga, Niue, Tuvalu, and Fiji. Ato Abate’s book entitled Value Analysis and Engineering Reengineered is a product of his dual lenses of experience and research over four decades. His book is also published in Amharic as የፋይዳ ትንተና እና ህንደሳ። He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Addis Ababa University and a master’s degree in government and politics from St. John’s University, New York.

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