Lolita E. Walker was sworn in on December 5, 2022, to represent the Prince George’s County Board of Education’s District 9. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Walker was selected among her colleagues to serve as Vice Chair. This vote of leadership confidence is also evident in her elected and appointed positions in various organizations and boards.
Ms. Walker has always been involved in school leadership. From holding executive offices in the Student Government Association to embracing both elected and appointed positions on the Parent, Teacher, Student Association (PTSA) at her child’s school, Ms. Walker is not a stranger to serving in the best interests of our parents, teachers, students, staff, and community.
A graduate of both Eugene Burroughs Middle School (now Accokeek Academy) and Gwynn Park High School, both in District 9, Ms. Walker also graduated as an Industrial Engineer from Morgan State University, a Historically Black College/University in Maryland. Upon graduation, Ms. Walker immediately began working full-time for Proctor & Gamble, the parent company of The Gillette Company, in South Boston, Massachusetts. From engineer to project and program manager, to operations manager, and transformation specialist, Ms. Walker held many roles within the technical spaces of product supply. While working full-time, she earned her master’s degree in business administration from Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts. Her organization, attention to detail, leadership, and ability to think out of the box helped her succeed in roles both domestically and internationally. Having lived in Kronberg, Germany, Ms. Walker supported Braun in special projects for continuous improvement and transformational change.
When Ms. Walker received news that her father had stage four prostate cancer, she rendered her two-week resignation to relocate back to Maryland. Given Ms. Walker’s proven leadership and continued demonstrated results, sponsors and mentors assisted her in securing a best-fit role within the company, only one hour from District 9.
After almost twenty years with the company, including five years with Cover Girl Cosmetics, three words changed Ms. Walker’s life forever, “no thank you.” She said no to a promising and continued successful career. Ms. Walker would leave her senior leadership position that managed new product delivery and innovation for North America.
She would begin her entrepreneurial journey by founding a personal and professional coaching, speaking, and consultancy. A divorced, single mother has launched a small business, authored four books, appeared on a TEDx stage, held numerous television appearances to gift motivation, inspiration, and a renewed lens of action, started a podcast, transferred to a local chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, earned a certification as a Professional Certified Coach, became an instructor at her undergraduate institution of Morgan State University, begun the pursuit of her Ph.D., and earned an elected position for the Prince George’s County Public School Board of Education, to name a few.
Ms. Walker believes that when we can connect across, our students, parents, teachers, staff, and community, our links become stronger and our scholars will thrive. Her goal is to leverage parent organizations to strengthen this connection. Once connected with a strong foundation, Ms. Walker believes that we may then begin to build up. This looks like educating our parents, teachers, students, staff, and community on board policies, and how they impact the schools and their scholars. This also looks like listening intently to what issues exist and what solutions may creatively spawn, such that we can build together, as one PGCPS.
During her tenure as a Board member, Ms. Walker served as a member of the Operations, Budget & Fiscal Affairs Committee from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 and is currently a member of the Policy and Governance Committee since July 1, 2023.
Alongside our Superintendent, we will connect across and begin to build up in a systematic fashion to ultimately to thrive together, as a collective, that is seeking the work together for the betterment of Prince George’s County Public Schools.
