Tomeka Hart Wigginton
Tomeka Hart Wigginton
The HarWigg Group, Founder and Principal

Tomeka Hart Wigginton, who completed the Public Leadership Credential (PLC) in 2023, has always used social impact as the guiding force in her career. With senior leadership roles in multiple industries, including education, elected office (she served two terms on the elected school board in Memphis, Tennessee, including a term as Board President), nonprofit management, and philanthropy (at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Blue Meridian Partners), she has worked in a vast and diverse range of positions, all to increase social and economic mobility at the local, state, and national levels, for almost 30 years.

What led her to PLC was a realization that she could drive even more change if she approached public sector work from a different angle. “The work of nonprofits and philanthropy are critically important, but we must also focus on the effectiveness of the government and public sector leaders if we are to realize sustainable, population-level outcomes,” she said. “Having served in elected office for nine years, I understood that it is extremely difficult to improve the effectiveness of the public sector, but I knew there were tools and resources that could be used to achieve the impact I sought. The PLC was the perfect solution for strengthening my public sector leadership skills and knowledge.”

During her time at PLC, Tomeka made a significant career shift. She left her previous role and founded The HarWigg Group, a consulting firm that works with the public sector, nonprofit, and philanthropy leaders and organizations, where she currently serves as Founder and Principal. Her learnings from PLC, which at the time she was still completing, helped her take the leap into her new career venture. “The lessons from PLC have helped shape my work, especially within the public sector. I use the decision making, policy delivery, and leadership frameworks and concepts from PLC regularly at my new organization,” she said.

This is just the beginning for The HarWigg Group, and Tomeka has a strong vision of where the consulting firm’s next steps will lead, with the support of her new knowledge gained from PLC. “As I continue to grow my consulting business, I seek to work more closely and directly with public sector leaders as my main focus. To significantly increase social and economic mobility outcomes in communities across the country, we must have a strong, aligned, strategic, and collaborative public sector,” she said. “My work focuses on public sector decision making, policy delivery, and leadership and ethics. The knowledge, skills, and concepts I learned through PLC are key to my business.”

Now that she has completed PLC, Tomeka has strong words of wisdom for anyone considering entering the program, especially those already working a busy schedule like she is. “The program was appropriately challenging, while also manageable against my hectic schedule. Further, being able to use some of the credits against the master’s program makes the PLC beyond valuable to me, she said. “PLC provides a great balance of theory to strengthen your thinking and ideas and practicality for real world application of those ideas.  Since completion of the program, I have used, and often refer back to, the concepts learned through the PLC.”