Alumni Spotlight: Dr. Lenora Peters Gant

Dr. Lenora Peters Gant (HKSEE 1997 and 1999) was selected for the 2023 Harvard Kennedy School Black Alumni Association’s (HKS BAA) Distinguished Achievement Honor.  Dr. Gant was recognized in Boston, MA on 31 March and 1 April 2023 at the Harvard Kennedy School Black Leadership Policy Conference. This recognition acknowledges alums who have demonstrated distinction in their career field over a long period of time.

Dr. Gant has made significant contributions that set the gold standard in the professional arena of National Security and academic excellence as the Deputy Assistant Director of National Intelligence for Human Capital. She performed as the Director of Policy, Strategic Mission Outreach and created, directed and led the Intelligence Community (IC) Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) comprised of 30+ universities. The IC CAE has been a national institutionalized and congressionally funded program since 2004.  Dr. Gant facilitated and supervised cultural foreign travel exchanges for university students with the International Scholar Laureate Program in Africa, Europe, China and Australia. Her efforts now extend to academia as a National Security Executive-Senior Advisor and Research Director for the HU School of Business. 

Dr. Gant currently creates opportunities for Howard University (HU) students and faculty to engage in cutting-edge research opportunities with National Security agencies and industry. Her passion, energy and dedication are focused on America’s public service that benefit America’s next generation of student leaders, the African American community and the global world through continuous achievements and service to our grateful Nation.

Tell us a little bit about your background, family, and where are you from.

I am from Port St. Joe, Florida, a city located on Florida’s panhandle, which has some of the most beautiful beaches in the country. I am the seventh of twelve children, and I come from a family of entrepreneurs. My father and uncle owned real estate, grocery stores, and laundromats around the city - about one-third of the town. I knew from an early age that I was college-bound. My father, Nathan Peters, Sr., who did not attend college, made sure that all his children had the opportunity to pursue higher education. He motivated me to say to myself, “if he [my father] can raise twelve children and send each to college, I should be able to do more and give more.”

You are one of our nation’s leading national security experts, and you have played key roles in the intelligence and national security communities. How did you develop an interest these fields?

It was serendipity. My husband and I lived in Japan and England after he completed medical school. In Japan, I worked for the United States Department of the Navy, Marine Corps. In England, I supported the United States Air Force. After six years living abroad, we returned to the United States in the early eighties. I worked for the United States Army at Fort McNair Army Base and subsequently at the Pentagon for the Office of the Secretary of Defense where I was a strategic planner for human capital initiatives and security. In each position, I took pride in the feeling that my contributions ultimately supported the betterment of the American people. In the defense and national security communities, no matter what position you fill, you know that your work helps to defend our nation, protect our citizens, and deter threats to keep the American people and our allies safe.

Did you study public policy in college? What skills benefited you during your public policy career?

I didn’t go into policy right away, but my background prepared me for my policy career. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management with a minor in Business Education at Florida A&M University. I also have an advanced degree from Vanderbilt University-George Peabody College in curriculum development. The interesting thing about a business degree is that it requires an understanding of economic policy, accounting, communications, workforce planning, and strategic planning – critical skills in public policy. Similarly, my curriculum degree taught me about educational policy and, more specifically, how to set standards, design curriculum, and disseminate educational pedagogy across multiple educational levels. These skills served me well in each of the many strategic implementation positions I have held, whether they were in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or beyond.

Another skill that has served me well is my work ethic. My father always spoke about the importance of your “word”, “work”, and “attitude”, and I kept his words in mind throughout my career. I also believe that you should understand how the work you complete supports the organization’s mission. Individuals often report to work without thinking about or understanding how the everyday work tasks that they complete relates to the mission. When I join a new organization, the first thing that I like to do is read that organization’s strategic plan. Understanding the strategic goals enables me to shape my actions and deliverables toward strategic and bottom-line mission sets.

Why did you decide to attend the HKS Executive Education Program?

I was interested in the senior executive career track when I was a mid-career staff member. After completing the Department of Defense’s Executive Development Program, I began to look at the recommended courses for the senior executive track. At that time, I worked for a wonderful woman who encouraged me to attend the HKS Executive Education Program in 1997 while I was at DIA. Later in my career, after moving over to work for the CIA, I had another supportive supervisor who encouraged me to return another HKS Strategic Leadership Program in 1999. After completing the HKS program in 1999, I earned senior executive status in 2020.

I eventually became a member of the HKS Board. During my tenure, I created a formal speed networking/mentorship program that partnered Board mentors to HKS student mentees. I love to think about how to implement great ideas in a systematic way, and that program was an example of my passion of “giving back”.  It touched the lives of many HKS students by helping them to connect with Board members and learn about a variety of industries and career fields.

What lessons or experiences from your time at HKS informed your career?

Professor Daniel Goleman (author of New York Times bestsellers Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships) taught a course that had a great impact on me. As a matter of fact, I have two of his books sitting right here on my shelf. He said that anyone can become a leader or a technical expert, but if you don’t have emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and humility, you will miss out on becoming a great leader. His books are my Bible.

His observations reminded me of what my entrepreneur father always reminded us, which was no matter where you go or how much education you achieve, you must treat people with kindness and humility.

You have had such an impact on expanding opportunities for under-represented minorities in the national security and intelligence communities. Which accomplishments are you most proud of?

I am very proud of my work with the Intelligence Community Centers for Academic Excellence (ICCAE) Program, which I created, designed, directed, and implemented. Prior to establishing ICCAE, I was on a 2-year sabbatical from CIA, Officer-in-Residence Program, at Trinity University when former CIA Director George Tenet sent a senior manager and CIA attorney to meet with me and ask me to return to the CIA. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence had directed the CIA to strengthen its recruitment of minority ethnic groups in the Intelligence Community, and they wanted me to spearhead the effort.

After interviewing many college faculty and Presidents, I realized that high school outreach to underrepresented groups would be an essential component of this new outreach rubric at the college level. However, I knew that our team did not have the resources to personally support this massive outreach initiative.  Instead, I created a model where any college or university that were competitively selected for the IC CAE program received grant funding.  In turn, those institutions would be required to develop and implement their own unique high school outreach program by creating a spider-web approach across the U.S. in support of America’s National Security.

The ICCAE pilot program began in 2004 with unfunded dollars at universities such as Tennessee State University and Florida International University. It operated with unfunded money for its first three to four years.  Our IC CAE team operationalized the program and consistently collected and presented performance metrics on Capitol Hill to show ICCAE successes. I am proud to say that after the first few years of unfunded money, ICCAE has been congressionally funded now for almost 20 years!  Very few National Security programs have that kind of track record of success.

I now encounter so many students who say that were it not for the ICCAE program, they would not be working at the DIA, CIA, or any other intelligence or National Security Agency. In fact, I received an email recently from one of my ICCAE mentees who graduated from Michigan State University. She currently works at the U.S. State Department and is now a mentor for ICCAE students – so the process has come full circle.

What challenges did you face as you established the ICCAE program? How did you overcome them?

My biggest challenge was that we had no congressionally mandated funding those first few years.  I was running the program with unfunded money. This meant that I had to constantly search for leftover funds from other programs and defend that unfunded money in support of the ICCAE program. A senior manager once stated that since we did not have dedicated money for the program, we should cut it. My supervisor was a ICCAE champion and he supported my efforts and continued to fund the ICCAE with unfunded money until we could secure congressional funding.  I was determined to demonstrate that we were getting the expected return on those investment dollars by presenting the ICCAE data annually on Capitol Hill.

I addressed this challenge through the power of data, now called “data science”. I required every participating ICCAE institution (there were nine schools by the third year) to provide data and metrics about their respective program. I created data visualizations (graphics and charts) each year for Congress to illustrate how many ICCAE scholars each college/university had, how many courses they had developed in national security, how many scholars received offers of employment, how many high schools they had partnered with, among other critical data points. I would also emphasize the importance of getting out into the field and managing programs onsite by providing a presence and personal touch to our customer sets. You cannot successfully lead a program from behind a desk – you have to get out and interview those who are impacted by the program you manage and to support data collection and forge connections.

Why has it been important for you to help bring more under-represented minority groups into the STEM field in the national security and intelligence community?

My first technology endeavor was in the 1991-1993 timeframe at DIA where I developed the agency’s first distance learning facility so that the National Intelligence University (NIU) could better instruct and reach troops around the globe who were station in all parts of the world. At the time, I was also working on my Ph.D. at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University in technology learning where my research question was, “how do you operationalize distance learning in the electronic classroom?”

Fast forward to recent history and the COVID-19 pandemic where we have all had to re-think the role that technology plays in supporting new models of instructional delivery. We are at a point where everyone needs to have some technology savvy, no matter what discipline they are in.

Tell us about your current work at Howard University?

I originally came to Howard University as part of a sabbatical from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and I eventually joined the faculty of the business school after my retirement from government in late 2018. While at Howard, I established no-cost learning opportunities, in-class room curricula engagements, national security speaker series with renowned speakers such as national security correspondent J.J. Green.  Currently, my tenure at HU allows me to collaborate with National Security agencies to establish mutually beneficial partnerships such as Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs).  Currently, HU has CRADAs between the National Security Agency and the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency.  The CRADAs allow an intelligence agency to work with the university on mission-aligned research goals in ways that benefit both the agencies and the university.  In addition to the CRADA, each year I secure funding for Howard and several other Historically Black Colleges and Universities to work with intelligence agencies on unclassified research problem sets. The universities, faculty, and students have been able to support these agencies with research and receive academic stipends for their innovative research initiatives.

What parting advice do you have for students who are interested in national security and intelligence career?

Acquire your technical and tradecraft skills, be the best at what you do! If you are an accountant, be the best accountant you can be. If you support marketing and finance, be the best that you can be. However, remember that although technical skills are great, they alone will not take you to the top. Emotional intelligence, interpersonal skills, self-awareness, consequence management, and system thinking are essential for great leaders. When you develop a strategy or policy, remember to analyze and seek feedback from reputable managers on how the policy will impact the organization and people beyond your immediate core work unit, office and/or directorate.