The Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership (CPL) announced on Friday, Aug. 31 (US time), that it has chosen former vice president Leni Robredo as one of the center’s Hauser Leaders, who are described as “living examples of principled and effective public leadership,” for the Fall 2022 semester.
“A huge honor to be invited at Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership, as one of its Hauser Leaders for the Fall 2022 semester,” Robredo wrote on Facebook, sharing the official announcement from Harvard on the CPL’s website.
As a Hauser Leader, the former vice president will meet individually with students, give guest lectures, and lead public events on campus.
She added that the Leaders “will engage with students, faculty, alumni, and the wider Harvard community during our stint on campus.”
“I’m both thrilled and humbled (to) be given this space to share my advocacies and experiences, alongside this roster of distinguished leaders from various fields and sectors. What a blessing it is to be returning to Cambridge for this opportunity,” Robredo said.
On its website, the CPL highlighted how Robredo “reinvented the Office of the Vice President of the Philippines (OVP), transforming it from its traditional role of performing purely ceremonial functions to an advocacy centered office.”
“Under Robredo’s leadership, the Office of the Vice President also set the standard of swift, efficient response during disasters and calamities, assisting affected communities from relief to rehabilitation,” it added.
The center also mentioned the launch of Robredo’s Angat Buhay, which it said energized the private sector and provided the space for them to help “some of the poorest, farthest, and smallest parts around the country.”
“Through such collaboration, Angat Buhay reached out to hundreds of communities — from rural areas to the urban poor — and brought much-needed interventions on health, education, nutrition and food security, rural development, women empowerment, and housing,” it wrote.
As Robredo returned to private life, the CPL brought focus on her launch of Angat Pinas Inc., the non-government organization she launched in July to continue the OVP’s Angat Buhay Program.
CPL said Angat Pinas Inc. “aims to build the largest network of volunteers in the Philippines, as it continues with the mission to uplift more Filipino lives.”
Aside from the former vice president and now chair of Angat Pinas, Inc., Harvard’s CPL also picked former US Rep. Jane Harman, novelist and columnist David Ignatius, United Negro College Fund (UNCF) President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Lomax, and LRN and The HOW Institute for Society founder and chairman Dov Seidman as Hauser Leaders.
“At a time when many challenges stem from leadership shortcomings, these Hauser Leaders bring to campus living examples of principled and effective public leadership,” Deval Patrick, co-director for the Center for Public Leadership and professor of the practice of public leadership, said in the announcement.
“Though from different experiences, these leaders share values, values applied in practical ways, that they can now share with the Kennedy School community,” he added.
Robredo is not the only one in her family to have a stint at Harvard. Her daughter, Dr. Tricia, is currently attending Harvard University’s Master of Medical Sciences in Global Health Delivery program, while eldest daughter Aika and late husband Jesse both earned their Masters of Public Administration degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.