Hi, I'm Leigh Morgan

I am the founder and CEO of Imaginal Leadership Strategies, a boutique global business advisory firm based in Seattle. I work with leaders and organizations navigating complexity, building strategy around AI, and managing critical inflection points—often when the stakes are high, the path forward isn’t obvious, and nimble, strategic leadership truly matters.

My mission is to ignite the fullest potential of leaders, organizations, and communities — and in doing so, create thriving impact at scale. I believe integrity matters and that agency is the key to unlocking greatness. In today’s dynamic times, high performance is essential to driving the positive change my clients and I work toward together.  

I am known for my authenticity, courage, and straight talk, as well as my experience in building, leading, and scaling high-performing organizations across multiple sectors, both domestically and globally. With three decades of leadership experience, I bring deep insight into designing and executing business strategy and transformational change that fuels performance, innovation, and resilience over time.

One of my clients described me as an “organizational Yoda.” That feels about right—though I am not as short as Yoda.

I host the popular The Space In Between podcast, where my guests and I offer helpful insights on leadership, agency, and what it means to serve effectively and stay fully human in today’s polarized world. 

I love golf, cycling, yummy food and wine, traveling the world, and loving on my family and friends. I give great hugs, and a fun fact: I competed against Olympian Dawn Staley while point guard for Duke’s Womens basketball team. She schooled me, but I’d do it all again in a heartbeat #GoDuke!

See my work experience below, next to my big hair photo.

I bring three decades of executive leadership experience, having served in C-suite roles at the Gates Foundation (COO), Genentech and Roche (VP/Global Head, HR), Nia Tero (CSOO), and at the University of California San Francisco (Associate Chancellor). I also served in NC Governor Jim Hunt’s administration. 

I have deep sector expertise in healthcare, tech, life science, philanthropy, and higher education including academic medical centers. 

I’ve worked globally for 20 years including the UK, EU, China, India, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Guyana and across sub-saharan Africa.

These experiences have shaped my understanding and capacity to lead transformational change at scale, build aligned teams and high performance cultures, broker public-private partnerships and build/execute strategy in pre and post-merger & acquisition settings. 

I am the immediate past board chair at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center ($3.4B operating budget) and have served on public & private life science boards (Kymera, Curemark). I am a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Hastings Center for Bio-Ethics Board of Advisors. I also serve on Duke’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) board.

I have an undergraduate degree from Duke, a MS from The American University and in 2017, I was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from the Asian University for Women (Chittagong, Bangladesh).