ROB LALKA

board Member

Rob Lalka serves as board chairman of Public Democracy, where he leads partnership development and advises on technology strategies to empower communities in pursuit of the common good.  He also serves on the board of Public Democracy America.

Rob 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. Kirkus Reviews called it “An impressive work of research and intellectual reflection," adding this praise: “The body of work addressing this subject now seems inexhaustible, but this book must count as among its most clear-eyed, well researched, and morally uncompromising examples.”

Early in his career, Rob spent time in investment banking and then in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina.  Rob became a Presidential Management Fellow in 2008, serving in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Partnerships and he 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.

After leaving government in 2012, Rob co-founded Medora Ventures, a consulting firm that supported investments with returns for shareholders, the local community, society overall, and generations to come.  Medora worked with purpose-driven clients around the world through three business units: capital, marketing, and public affairs. Their clients included CARE USA, LaunchPad, i(x) investments, Lime, Formlabs, the Free Ride, and the Pension Fund of the Christian Church. Before joining the faculty of Tulane, Rob was a director at Village Capital and a senior advisor at the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. 

Rob also 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 has previously served as Commissioner for the Broadmoor Improvement Association and as chairman of the board of the Mid-City Early Learning Center, a daycare that carries out the mission of the adjacent Canal Street Church: A Mosaic Community by creating an environment for young children where they are highly valued, their individuality is celebrated, their faith is fostered, and relationships are built.

Rob 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.