Wagaye Johannes

Wagaye Johannes is chief diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officer for World Learning. She is responsible for driving the implementation of World Learning’s DEI priorities across the organization’s operations and programs. She works to foster a more diverse, inclusive, equitable, and accessible workplace, learning environment, and culture, in addition to supporting the entire World Learning team’s contributions to lasting, cultural change.

Wagaye has extensive experience at the intersection of DEI and international education. She was the former director of operations and organizational development at Diversity Abroad, where she led efforts to strengthen the organizational infrastructure and visibility and led DEI consulting projects, including an assessment of World Learning and the School for International Training in 2020-21. Before this, she worked for the Institute of International Education (IIE), where she launched Generation Study Abroad, a campaign involving a network of more than 700 institutions to increase and diversify participation in study abroad. She also led the organization’s first diversity and inclusion task force and headed internal global communications. She has experience designing programs with a global, inclusive lens and facilitating DEI trainings, and brings with her a global perspective, having worked in Japan, Germany, Hungary, and the Netherlands.