Dr. River Sturdivant is a soul on a mission to support high-achieving leaders at the intersection of strategic leadership and inner wisdom. She currently serves as the Director of Learning and Impact at the Arthur Dean Family Foundation in Indiana. As a learning, evaluation, and program development strategist, she assesses, designs and delivers pathways to success. Dr. River is also the founder of Expand Flow Grow: Inner Leadership Solutions, which provides coaching, workshops, training, and transformative retreats to support emotional, mental, and energetic wholeness for high-achieving women leaders.
Dr. River completed her doctorate in Adult Learning and Development at Lesley University where she produced original research in studying Black women’s persistence, mindset, and inner resolve in pursuit of their goals. Drawing on this experience, alongside her certifications and trainings as an Emotional Intelligence Assessor and Coach, Emergent Learning Practitioner, Registered Yoga Teacher and Reiki Master, she supports leaders in cultivating a grounded and centered approach to leadership – from the inside out.
Inner leadership is about leading from the inside out, centering your whole self, and practicing radical courage to listen to and learn from the wisdom within. Dr. River believes that showing up as a great leader for others first requires showing up as a great leader for yourself.
This inner leadership approach developed not just from Dr. River’s 25 years in philanthropy, leadership, higher education, and learning and development. This work is personal. She learned to embrace all aspects of her life through the highs and lows of an expansive career, but also through navigating her own chronically suppressed emotions, mothering two visionary children, experiencing multiple traumatic losses, and traveling to nearly 30 countries.
Dr. River was born and raised in Michigan, began her adult life in the DC Metro area, currently resides in Indiana, and is connected to her family roots in Mississippi. She also has the amazing privilege to be the mother of Noah Malone and Zion Malone. Besides all that, you can find her somewhere dancing, traveling, listening to live music, searching for the nearest ocean, laughing with her sister-friends, or getting on her yoga mat.
Website: www.exapndflowgrow.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/riversturdivantphd