Welcome to Center for Black Women, Work, and Power

The Center for Black Women, Work, and Power exists to study, document, and shape the conditions of work affecting Black women in the United States.

At a moment marked by economic precarity, workforce disruption, and institutional retreat from equity commitments, the Center focuses on how Black women experience power, policy, and leadership across sectors—and how systems respond, or fail to respond, to those realities.

Our work is grounded in research, narrative analysis, and applied inquiry, with the goal of informing public discourse, organizational decision-making, and long-term structural change.

The Center’s work is guided by three core areas of inquiry: 

• Workforce Transformation
  How shifts in labor markets, technology, and economic policy are reshaping opportunity, stability, and mobility for Black women.
• Leadership and Power
  How Black women navigate leadership roles, authority, and institutional culture—and how power is constrained, contested, or redistributed within organizations.
• Institutional Accountability
  How corporations, public institutions, and philanthropic systems respond to stated commitments around equity, inclusion, and responsibility, particularly in moments of crisis or retrenchment.

 The Center prioritizes work that bridges analysis and lived experience, treating Black women not as a monolith or demographic trend, but as critical actors within the American economy. 

The Center for Black Women, Work, and Power was founded by Elizabeth Leiba, a writer, researcher, and workforce strategist whose work examines leadership, labor, and institutional behavior through both narrative and analytical lenses.

Elizabeth is the author of multiple books on work, leadership, and power, and her writing has explored the intersection of personal experience, organizational culture, and systemic change. Her work has been informed by years of engagement with corporate leaders, educators, workforce practitioners, and policy-adjacent spaces.

The Center represents a continuation and deepening of this work, providing a formal home for research-driven inquiry and public-facing scholarship.

Planned and in-progress work includes: 

• A flagship research brief examining the current inflection point facing Black women in the U.S. workforce 
• Long-form writing projects focused on labor, leadership, and institutional accountability
• Convenings and advisory engagements with organizations navigating workforce change
• Public essays and analytical commentary grounded in research and lived experience

 Additional details will be shared as projects are published and partnerships are formalized.