Tejumade Ajasa

As assistant director of the Fuqua/Coach K Center on Leadership & Ethics (COLE), Tejumade Ajasa serves as the chief operating officer – managing projects, programs and activities that support the mission of COLE and the Fuqua School of Business.

Being with the center since its founding, she has been instrumental in the launch and success of COLE’s initiatives that 1) support developing and empowering Fuqua MBA students to be Leaders of Consequence; 2) help practitioners be even more effective at thinking about their leadership and 3) facilitate the leadership scholarship and research among established and emerging scholars, through its annual New Directions in Leadership Research Conference.

Tejumade has served as project team leader on many COLE Initiatives, including the annual Fuqua Coach K Leadership Summit, the Duke Life of Significance Podcast Series (2020-2022), Leading Through Challenges Conversation (2020), the Undergraduate Scholars program and the COLE Impact Scholars program for 1st year MBAs. She is co-author with center teammates on the e-Book – “Making Leaders Book: Lessons from leaders shaped by Coach K”- a collection of insights and lessons from Coach K’s mentees, former players, and people he has influenced throughout his career. The e-Book will be made available to every incoming Duke freshman and MBA student in the 2024-2025 academic year.

Tejumade’s superpower is managing and simplifying complex projects. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from the Lagos State University, Nigeria. She is a Project Management Professional (PMP), a professional member of the Project Management Institute (PMI). She earned a Measurement Specialist certification from The Doerr Institute For New Leaders at Rice University (2023) and recently completed the Six Domains of Leadership Coach Certification in June 2024.