Meet Kristine Sloan, new executive director at Leadership Triangle

DURHAM – Kristine Sloan is the new executive director of Leadership Triangle. She succeeds Jesica Averhart who recently stepped down and will now join the organization’s Board of Directors.

Established in 1992, Leadership Triangle is a non-profit organization that aims to build leadership capacity and promote regionalism across the separate communities of the Triangle.

A Triangle native, Sloan is the former CEO of StartingBloc, a global leadership development nonprofit supporting 3200-plus entrepreneurs, activists, organizational leaders and organizers in amplifying their impact. Through StartingBloc, she worked with corporations like Facebook, Red Bull, and the American Heart Association to develop and nurture their talent.

Leadership Triangle

Prior to StartingBloc, she led a multimillion-dollar grant project in Burundi for All Across Africa, designed cross-cultural programming for NC State University, worked on water advocacy rights with indigenous populations in South India and co-founded a social enterprise in West Africa.

She holds three degrees from NC State University, including a master’s degree in International Studies with a specialization in Rural Development.

WRAL TechWire’s Chantal Allam recently had the chance to catch up with here. Here’s what she had to say:

Tell us a little about yourself, and your time as CEO as StartBloc.

I spent the last five years with StartingBloc, a global leadership development nonprofit, and stepped into the CEO role in early 2018. My time with StartingBloc really grew my commitment to leadership, to the power of community, and to the reality that we need ecosystems of support if we are going to move the needle on social and economic issues. I hope to bring the lessons and the experiences of the last five years into my role as Executive Director of Leadership Triangle.

Prior that, you’ve also done a lot of work abroad (as mentioned above.) What did you learn from these experiences that you hope will inform your new role?

Phew, so much! I’ve learned what it means to operate in cultural norms and standards that are not my own. I learned the importance of adaptation, flexibility, and reliance on community. I learned what it means to work in another language and what it feels like to be new to an area and a country. I hope to bring all of these experiences into my role as Executive Director of Leadership Triangle. Leadership Triangle supports a wide breadth of community leaders all bringing different perspectives and lived experiences to the table and I want to ensure that we value that breadth and do the work to support our program alumni in their efforts to shape the future of our region.

What are your ties to the Triangle, and why are you so committed to the area?

I was born in Rex Hospital and raised in the Wake County Public School System. I went to undergraduate and graduate school at NC State. The Triangle is my home, it’s my community, and it’s my people. This work is personal to me.

What are some of your goals for Leadership Triangle?

We have an incredible community of over 900 program alumni within the Leadership Triangle community. I want to leverage their talent, heart and expertise on the issues affecting our region and ensure that our organization is doing everything we can to amplify and support their work. I want to see our programs continue to grow – as we think about who our programs serve, I want to ensure that we are reaching leaders both inside our major cities and outside of them. Leaders need well networked ecosystems of support to do the work and I think Leadership Triangle is well positioned to help co-design that ecosystem.

These are difficult times. How do you plan to lead the organization out of this pandemic?

For me, leading is fundamentally about the capacity to hold tension, to work within complexity, and to create space for people to feel seen and heard. That’s true outside of a pandemic and within it. I don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future, but I imagine that through deep listening to what our community, partners and sponsors need in this moment, as well as holding a clear sense of possibility, that we will continue to convene and show up for the people in our organization and our region. Zoom also helps.