Rob Lalka

Rob Lalka is the Albert R. Lepage Professor in Business at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business and Executive Director of the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. In both 2019 and 2020, he received the A.B. Freeman School’s Excellence in Intellectual Contributions Award.

Lalka moved to New Orleans from Washington, DC, where he was a director at Village Capital and a senior advisor at the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. 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.

Lalka currently serves on the boards of Public Democracy, Inc., Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, and Venture For America in New Orleans. He graduated from Yale University, cum laude with distinction in both history and English, and he holds his master’s degree in global public policy from Duke University.

Lalka is a founding member of the Nieux Society, a community of entrepreneurs, artists, creators, and lovers of New Orleans exploring the promise of Web3 to inspire New Orleans’ creative culture to realize its full potential. Rob serves on the Nieux Society's Advisory Council, a small group of civic leaders, including B Mike, Big Freedia, Galactic, Demario Davis and Walter Isaacson, the Leonard Lauder Professor of American History and Values at Tulane.