The ascent of a leadership expert : Charmain Bogue

Meet Charmain Bogue and some of her philosophy? Establishing her leadership on a foundation of integrity, Charmain Bogue is a renowned Executive/CEO with almost 20 years of experience creating new levels of pipeline efficiency, team unification, and overall organizational success. Focusing heavily across the federal and now private sectors, Charmain has a vast background involving the intricacies of sustainable business development, startup/nonprofit scaling, DEI optimization, and harvesting innovative growth opportunities. Even more, enjoys leveraging that dynamicity to support versed industry leaders/audiences to rectify business weaknesses, capitalize on management strengths, and ultimately exceed bottom-up initiatives that propel them forward.

Ms. Bogue’s leadership experience and clear vision encourages an atmosphere of growth by providing training opportunities for employees and supporting the affirmative action EEO program. Her leadership is a true model of VA’s ICARE values. She is invested in leading people and transforming the way we operate for the better. Throughout her career to date, Charmain has built a strong inventory of experience and progressions that led to her respected standing amongst federal, private, startup, and nonprofit networks. In her most recent appointment as of January 11, 2022 she serves as the Executive Director for Women’s Campaign International where she is committed to serving communities and working with women and girls across 45 countries and counting. Seeking to leverage a decade of leadership experience in roles to improve an organization’s culture, delivery of services, and return on investment in a mission-critical environment.

She also started her own boutique consulting firm, She Blends Strategy Firm, which is a certified women of color-owned small business leading the charge as a woman entrepreneur. Serving in partnership with nonprofit as well as public and private organizations, she provides her expertise to better develop strategies that support more efficiency in the workplace. Charmain is committed to children’s nutrition as a mother of two young girls to ensure every child is entitled to transparency and variety within their school meal programs. She is currently a Co-Founder for Bambini Health, a health tech start-up company focused on leveraging technology to provide intuitive insights and solutions to all children, families, and educational systems for them to have a good start in life.

Oversight of WCI’s operations and ensure employees and business practices comply with regulatory and legal requirements. Develop an organizational culture and promote transparency and collaboration throughout the organization. Serving over 45 countries to include Afghanistan and Ukraine. Prior to her current efforts, Charmain supported various roles within the federal service for 15 years, gaining monumental expertise involving cross-functional leadership and positioning advanced growth innovations while remaining federally compliant. One of the more notable roles during this time was serving as a Senior Executive for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Here, Charmain not only oversaw the direction of 2,000+ education employees across the nation but is also accredited for optimizing efficient field operations and administration of education programs while retaining accountability for a $200M annual budget.

Charmain began her journey by earning a Bachelors in Science in Psychology from Morgan State University along with a Masters of Science in Education from Hofstra University. In addition, Charmain expanded her education with coinciding professional certifications at Harvard Kennedy School, the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School, Google, Project management Institute, and George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership.

Driven by value-based guidance and mission excellence, Charmain has a genuine passion for translating business visions into tangible realities and doing so all while ensuring everyone across the organizational pipeline attains positive constructive experiences along the way. From advanced advocation executions to tactical growth accelerations, Charmain ultimately demonstrates her devotions by delivering tactical yet innovative opportunities that unlock full-scale potential and solidify sustainable futures. This, in conjunction with her motivating energy to exceed forecast expectations and innate appreciation for moral compass leadership, is what has collectively shaped Charmain into an endorsed multi-industry change agent – one who continually strives to raise the bar for her team(s), stakeholders, the executive space in its entirety.

Charmain currently resides in Northern Virginia with her husband and two young daughters. Furthermore, she is also a proactive Board Member for Women’s Campaign International, an Advisory Board Member for Hofstra University, and an ongoing mentor within The Mom Project.

Led substantial improvements to streamline processes, reduce redundancies, modernize technology capabilities to enhance the overall outcome of benefits delivery and services to veterans, service members, and their family members. These efforts ultimately equated to the successful execution of ~$12BN in education benefit payments to nearly $1M GI Bill beneficiaries yearly. Coupled with that, Charmain also served on the National Science and Technology Council Federal Coordination in STEM Education Committee with a core goal to help expand investments in STEM education programs across federal agencies. She also supported the White House Gender Policy Council on their efforts to develop domestic and foreign policies, programs, and communication strategies to ensure federal agencies advance gender equity and equality – core leadership and business trajectory pillars she has since leveraged in the private sector to help cultivate positive growth/scaling reform within that landscape as well.

Setting the vision for the company and defining the overall strategy from launch to scale. Driving growth, profitability and company value. Developing and implementing scalable and efficient strategies to ensure consistent results and exponential growth. Charmain’s ongoing commitments from then to now have not gone unnoticed, as she was awarded Service to Citizens HillVets 100 in 2019, the Service To The Citizens Public Service Award in 2020, the Bill Pearson Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021, and Marquis Who’s Who Award for Women Leaders in 2022.