Life’s Hard, Splendorful Path
Allegra was born during the Vietnam War to a military family. After the war, her family re-located to a military base near Selma, Alabama. She grew up with a front row seat to the gritty reality of our unfinished American experiment. She was taught the path of reconciliation by great African & Selma reconcilers, and wise spiritual, literary, and intellectual mentors.
She currently teaches management and leadership at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering’s Master of Engineering Management program as an Executive in Residence.
Honors, education & family
- “Architect of Change” by Maria Shriver. Honored by US military, Austin, Texas, Birmingham, Alabama, Time & USA TODAY among others
- Harvard Business School (MBA) & Georgetown’s leadership coaching program. (PCC certification, ICF)
- Lives with her husband Theodore Ryan in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. When her two adult sons visit, she enjoys comedies and cooking for them.
- Linkedin profile, click here.
Allegra has taught & consulted in 17 countries and on five continents with her firm Gold Gable Advisors.
Here is a partial client that worked with Allegra for renewal, innovation, education & leadership coaching:
Get to know Allegra through her books:
Engagements that transcend age, wealth, and identity
Poetry Websites:
Select articles:
- Essays at Duke Divinity School’s Faith & Leadership
- Seven Lessons for Reintegrating Soldiers after Deployments with Ambassador Prudence Bushnell
- Article on Rick’s Place, a grassroots military community
White Papers on Human-Centered Innovation: The Bright Human Spirit Series (2012)
Testimonials
Allegra helped me begin to think of our team not as a collection of individuals but as its own entity. This shift in mindset provided greater space for the strengths of each individual to combine to make a team that was greater than the sum of its parts. The resulting increased efficacy of the team helped secure an impressive court victory.
International Justice Organization, Europe, 2021
Through the activities and opportunities that she and her team provided /at Rick’s Place respite park for military families/, Allegra and her team helped people make new connections: cognitive, emotional, and arguably, physical connections involving neural circuitry. Their work surely impacts favorably on the mental health of your families as much or more than anything arising from our neuroscience research labs or clinics now and in the foreseeable future. And they are doing it in a naturalistic, intentional, approachable, and more comprehensive way where a completely mechanistic explanation of the benefits is unknown and perhaps unknowable.”
UNC-Chapel Hill Neuroscientist and Leadership Development Expert, Darin Knapp, Ph.D. 2019
Allegra helped me develop the skills to address challenges big & small. She taught me to listen to myself, and through connecting with my inner knowing, make truer choices.
Executive Director (emeritus), Farmer and Food Systems Non-Profit, 2021
Allegra Jordan 