Leigh Anne Liu Named Leadership Fellow of the International Women’s Forum

ATLANTA –Leigh Anne Liu has been selected for the 2025-2026 Leadership Fellow of the International Women’s Forum (IWF), comprising of 39 participants who represent the highest caliber of next-generation women leaders. IWF invests in making women stronger, smarter, and more influential through its Leadership Fellows Program, a year-long, intensive leadership development experience.

Liu serves as the director of the Institute of International Business at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, and she holds the Connie D. and Ken McDaniel WomenLead Chair. In these roles, she has shown a deep and lasting commitment to promoting inclusive global leadership and fostering cross-cultural understanding through research, education, and community engagement. She has guided over 500 graduate students, promoted the development of early-career scholars, and served as a trusted advisor and thought leader in organizations like the Academy of Management and the World Affairs Council of Atlanta.

“I'm thrilled and humbled to be selected as a member of the 2025-2026 IWF Leadership Fellows class. This program embodies the IWF's mission to unite women leaders worldwide and advance women’s leadership today and tomorrow. I look forward to learning from my incredible cohort, the program, and bringing fresh ideas back home to GSU,” said Liu.

IWF’s Leadership Fellows Program was launched in 1994 with seed funding from the U.S. Labor Department as a direct result of the Glass Ceiling Commission. It annually convenes fellows from around the world for a total of 20 days of leadership development. Featuring academic partnerships with University of Cambridge and INSEAD, the program offers customized leadership training for high-achieving women leaders on their path to the C-suite. The approach is holistic and focused on the participant’s personal and professional development, career path, and leadership trajectory while embracing the value of an outside perspective.

This year’s class of the Leadership Fellows Program includes accomplished women leaders from the Bahamas, Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, the United States, and, for the first time, Kyrgyzstan.

Liu joined Georgia State University in 2005 where she is a faculty member in the Institute of International Business. Early leadership roles included serving as coordinator of the Ph.D. program in International Business and as a co-leader of initiatives supported by our federally funded Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER). In these capacities, she helped design and lead programs that have reached thousands of students, many of whom have gone on to hold faculty leadership positions at universities around the world or executive roles in multinational corporations.

Since her appointment as director, Liu has significantly expanded the reach and impact of the Institute of International Business. Under her leadership, the previously unranked undergraduate international business program has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as #24 nationally and #12 among public universities.