Rob Lalka

Director

Rob Lalka is Professor of Practice in Management, the Albert R. Lepage Professor in Business at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business, and the Executive Director of the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He has twice received the A.B. Freeman School’s Excellence in Intellectual Contributions Award and is the author of The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits Into Power, from Columbia University Press.

Prior, he served in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Partnerships and was on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, for which he was recognized with the State Department’s Superior Honor Award and its Meritorious Honor Award.

In addition to being board chairman of Public Democracy, Inc., and on the board of Public Democracy America, Rob currently serves on the boards of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, where he chairs the cybersecurity committee, and Venture For America in New Orleans. He graduated from Yale University, cum laude with distinction in both history and English, holds his master’s degree in public policy from Duke University, and earned executive education certificates from Harvard Business School.