Board of Directors

Mr. Botts experienced the need for a deep connection and relationship with God through Christ Jesus early in life. As a teenager, he heard the call to Pastor and began a thirty-year journey of wrestling with how to fulfill this most high calling. In June of 2020, Mr. Botts and his family took the first big step in living out the call to Pastor with the establishment of a fully-digital ministry called, My Connected Church (MCC). The vision of MCC is to establish a space in the world where everyone sees God in everyone else by promoting righteousness and restorative justice. Their church achieves this vision by living out its mission through the four-fold ministry plan of B.I.N.D.ing (Building, Investing, Nurturing and Developing) the world to God and each other.

 

As a father of three children and the husband of one wife, Mr. Botts’ first ministry is to his family. He strives to lead his family with faith, grace, and compassion, encouraging each of them to pursue an individual relationship with Jesus, while cultivating a spirit of love, worship and connection in their home.

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As an entrepreneur, Mr. Botts is the Principal of Mentor Manage Consulting, a workforce development and youth services consulting firm. This work allows him to live each day as a servant leader, supporting organizations and individuals in achieving their growth and success goals. Nationally-recognized as a consultant, trainer, and public speaker, Mr. Botts has shared insights and knowledge across the United States to support programmatic innovations and to help improve outcomes through inclusivity, diversity, equity, belonging, and culture building.

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Lastly, as a devoted community leader, committed to a life of service, Mr. Botts currently serves locally in the town of East Hartford, Connecticut (USA) on both the Board of Selectmen and the Democratic Town Committee.

Mrs. Delgado is a business and operations strategist with nearly two decades of experience helping entrepreneurs and corporations grow and scale their impact. Her savvy in developing results-driven business strategies around process, organizational design, and revenue creation has made her a sought-after professional in the areas of retail, fashion, education management, and education publishing. Hailed as a Rainmaker and nicknamed “The Wizard” for creating operational systems that bank millions, Mrs. Delgado has worked with and for some of the biggest names in business, included but not limited to Starbucks, The HomeDepot, Success Academies, and Amplify Education. She has led overhauls of business operations, coached executive leadership through global product launches and mergers, and developed the blueprint on niching down to get big results.

 

In March 2020, as a passion project, Mrs. Delgado started helping solopreneurs optimize their time and business operations, working with aspiring entrepreneurs across a multitude of specialties from the food industry to skin care to real estate. With the goal of reaching more businesses and having a greater impact, she launched her own consulting and business educational company in April 2021, J. Delgado & Co. Since then, she has been helping creators turn their digital product ideas from daydreams to full-fledged, profitable businesses by simplifying the secrets of big business and making those secrets accessible.

 

Mrs. Delgado lives in Upstate New York (USA) with her husband, Maxim, and their three children, Logan, Chase, and Aspen (ages 1 to 14).

Mr. Ashuma is currently working as the Global Senior Finance Manager at One Acre Fund. He is responsible for and oversees all accounting, financial reporting, tax, and regulatory compliance aspects of the organization. With over a decade of progressive experience in the field of accounting and finance, he has held other finance leadership roles at Kickstart International Inc., International Livestock Research Institute, and Safaricom Limited.

 

Mr. Ashuma holds a Masters of Science in Project Management, as well as a Bachelors of Commerce (Accounting Option) from the University of Nairobi. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Business Administration, with a specialty in Finance.

Ms. Bakamurera is the Founder & CEO of Mbgates (formerly known as Glam Up House), a global fashion powerhouse connecting high net worth individuals to top-notch fashion brands operating in emerging markets. In the past, she served as the Chief Business Officer for a company that develops and invests in land and real estate, successfully contributing to multi-million dollar projects while working closely with diverse teams. A FinTech enthusiast and FashionTech expert, Ms. Bakamurera believes in the use of technology for development, especially in emerging markets. She sees FinTech solutions as a means to help uplift the financial standards of communities, especially those where a chunk of the population is still either unbanked or underbanked. Furthermore, she sees FashionTech as a means to bring people comfort.

 

In addition to acquiring extensive experience in sales and marketing with international companies, spanning two continents (Asia and Africa), Ms. Bakamurera served as a Marketing Manager at an educational agency offering the following services: career guidance, university selection, and admission for students seeking to study abroad. She also served as an English Language Instructor at a Chinese primary and high school, teaching around 360 students, total.

 

Ms. Bakamurera has always pushed to positively contribute to any organization she joins by applying her process-oriented and human-centered skills. As an avid learner, in her spare time, she enjoys reading fiction books, as well as watching biographies.

Dr. Ekwelum is proud to be LEF's Co-Founder and to be serving as Legacy of Excellence Academy's chief transformational leader on the ground, as the school's Executive Director. With over a decade of experience in the field of education, he brings to this position a profound respect for the process of successfully guiding our youth and the process of supporting continuous adult learning - two areas that require a great deal of humility and compassion. Specializing in culturally responsive teaching and learning, school start up, school turnaround, and teacher retention, Dr. Ekwelum is the author of Education's Silent Exodus: A Critical Exploration of Race & the Shortage of Black Men in the Teaching Profession. ​

 

Dr. Ekwelum is kept grounded by his faith, his Nigerian heritage, and his family, specifically his incredible wife and their three, precocious children.