Erica Dhawan is a writer, speaker, and consultant on next generation leadership. She advises organizations to harness the power of multi-generational workforces to design better offerings, build stronger brands, integrate new media and cultivate diverse, creative workplaces.
Erica has studied organizational leadership with experts Ron Heifetz (adaptive leadership), Marshall Ganz (community organizing), Otto Scharmer (presencing) and Robert Kegan (adult development) and movement/awareness-based leadership with Dance Exchange founder and choreographer Liz Lerman. She currently conducts research with gender leadership expert Hannah Bowles and workplace innovation guru Lotte Bailyn on work-life aspirations of Generation Y women and men entering the 21st century workplace.
Erica also teaches movement-based artistic practices to provide organizations with tools to spur innovation, build team-work, and develop leadership capacities. In addition, she designs programs for girls and emerging women leaders and innovators who seek to have a self directed career and personal life in the 21st century.
Named in Newsweek’s college edition as “15 Students You Don’t Know But Will” and one of Teen People’s “20 Teens Who Will Change the World” Erica was a women’s right activist and a national youth organizer for the March for Women Lives throughout college. She started her professional career at Lehman Brothers in Capital Markets and has worked at Deloitte Consulting in strategy consulting.
Dhawan has also worked with a variety of social businesses. She was the founder ofAcumen Fund’s global chapter network, which began with a couple of volunteers and has expanded to thousands of members who have formed chapters in cities including New York, London, San Francisco, and Dubai. She has also helped launch Education Access for All, an Indian education social enterprise dedicated to bring innovative tools to primary schools in rural India.
Dhawan graduated from the Wharton School in Business & Public Policy and currently is a joint Harvard Kennedy School and MIT Sloan MPA/MBA candidate. For her work, she has been named an World Economic Forum Global Shaper, Aspen Institute Socrates Society member, TEDxManhattan fellow, and MIT Legatum fellow.