At the tender age of six, Shobana Powell, DSW ’20, decided to be a light amidst the darkness in the world, and to build community. Nestled in her grandmother’s lap, she heard countless inspiring stories of how her mother, grandparents and many others in her family and the Tamil community survived the Sri Lankan civil war in the 1980s. Her family later emigrated to the United States, where Powell was born. 

At age 12, while learning about human rights around the world and civil rights across the U.S., she suddenly realized something about herself. 

“I saw a photo of folks boarding a bus to Birmingham and it just clicked in this little brown girl, growing up oceans away from her family's homeland, ‘oh, that looks like my people's experience,’” Powell said. “Maybe I was quiet, awkward and overlooked — but I was a leader in a different way.” 

That day Powell decided she was a human rights activist and she would become a social worker. True to her word, she went on to earn bachelor, master and doctoral degrees in social work, the latter at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. She became a therapist, a changemaker and now a leader who centers community throughout all her endeavors.

Now, Powell is taking her leadership skills to the next level, selected from a field of thousands of applicants to be one of only 100 professionals in the 2024-2025 cohort of Obama Foundation Leaders USA. The six-month training program recruits participants who have demonstrated a commitment to advancing the common good in leadership development and civic engagement, helping them hone their skills and scale up their work across public, private and nonprofit sectors. 

The Obama Foundation Leaders experience

The leaders program convenes virtually every week for interactive sessions designed to help participants drive change through relationship building with their peers and engagement with thought leaders within the Obama Foundation community. The focus is on the plethora of avenues that are available to be a successful changemaker. Powell finds it inspirational and validating to learn from people of so many different backgrounds, particularly women of color, who led initiatives during the Obama Administration. 

“My soul hurts from all the growth that's been happening,” Powell said.

One interactive session was on social change through the arts, and featured a presentation from a changemaker who is creating spaces for Black composers who have not traditionally been uplifted, as well as an opera singer who uses their work to share stories about substance use disorder. Another session focused on storytelling, with exercises emphasizing the skills of intentional public speaking. Participants were tasked with crafting a two-minute monologue explaining what they do, what factors have shaped their motivation, what the need is and why it is urgent. 

Her cohort is diverse, she says, and that allows all of them to find belonging in it. They feel empowered through community building to expand their professional and leadership development. The program also intentionally emphasizes the opportunities to be gleaned from connecting with the global network of past and current cohorts and harnessing that collective power in order to create lasting change going forward.

Lifting up unlikely leaders

Powell began her career working with South Asian survivors of violence, which led to what she describes as her calling — supporting survivors of human trafficking. She dedicated her doctoral research at the USC on how to partner with survivors, or those with lived experience, to lead healing work in their own communities. 

Her company, Shobana Powell Consulting, provides trauma-informed training, technical assistance and research to nonprofit and government entities who want to design or implement ethical programs for underrepresented or underrecognized populations. What makes her firm unique is a team primarily comprised of leaders of color, many whom are also survivors of trafficking and other trauma-related experiences. They are able to provide subject matter expertise on the issues for which they are personally impacted. And they do it in over 20 languages, having realized a need for trauma-informed interpreting and translating within the survivor space. More recently, they have focused on gender-based violence and partnering with community entities specifically serving this population.

“Hearing the stories of resilience amidst adversity from my clients makes me a stronger, more resilient person,” Powell said. “It's powerful, it's beautiful. I love seeing people heal. In turn, there's a research component that is great for me too. So, we talk about both sides.”

Participation in the Obama Foundation Leaders Program has also inspired Powell to write a book about creating space for unlikely leaders, including herself.

“I'm not what I typically saw as a bad-ass woman in leadership,” Powell said. “I'm soft and gentle and goofy and nerdy. It would be nice to write a book for those of us who have that type of approach, who fly a bit more under the radar.”

Powell admits she is most comfortable uplifting others and that has been her approach to building a career, The leaders program is challenging her to experience a parallel growth, personally within herself and professionally to grow her company in new and different ways. Her leaders program cohort are all individuals who, like her, want to share and see more light in the world. 

“I think just like darkness recognizes darkness, light recognizes light,” Powell said. “I hear what other people want to silence and see the light within that darkness — and want to bring more light to that light.”