Queen Ese on Global Black and African Heritage Leadership

There is a question many high-performing leaders eventually face-often quietly, beneath the titles, achievements, and recognition: Who am I beyond what I've accomplished?

Queen Esi Akoma Pa Rasheen, Founder of African Roots Worldwide & Leaders Made

For Queen Esi Akoma Pa Rasheen, Founder of African Roots Worldwide and Leaders Made, that question became the foundation of her work—and a global leadership movement.

WHO IS MANDY MULLENS?

Mandy Mullens-Williams, also known as Queen Ese, is a U.S. and Ghana-based founder of African Roots Worldwide and Leaders Made, platforms dedicated to restoring African identity, advancing psychological healing, and developing values based, Soul Centered Leadership™ across the United States and the global African diaspora, with growing expansion across the African continent.

With over 25 years of experience developing leaders across corporate, consulting, and civic environments, including work with Fortune 100 organizations and global management consulting firms, her work bridges leadership development with cultural grounding and identity alignment. She was honored with the title Queen of Development in Ghana in recognition of her philanthropic and humanitarian contributions. This distinction reflects a longstanding commitment to service and expands her leadership platform globally to strengthen psychological restoration among Black and African heritage leaders.

Mandy Mullens-Williams defines and advances soul-centered leadership™ as a values-based framework that integrates mind, body, and soul, contributing to an emerging lexicon within global leadership and the African diaspora. Her work also redefines culture beyond expression, positioning it as lived values that shape decision-making, responsibility, and collective alignment.

She is currently completing her forthcoming book, Soul Centered Leadership™, which further develops this leadership model to prepare leaders of African heritage for global impact. Through her work, Mandy Mullens-Williams, as Queen Ese, is advancing a new leadership ethos, one that safeguards African heritage as the origin of humanity while equipping leaders to shape the future with clarity, integrity, and collective responsibility.

THE ORIGIN OF THIS WORK

The origin of this work began with a deeply personal question: What does it mean to be African when you are shaped by both the continent and the diaspora, yet fully claimed by neither? More specifically, what does it mean to be Black and still feel a distance from fully identifying as African, despite an undeniable connection?

As Kwame Nkrumah once expressed, "I may not have been born in Africa, but Africa was born in me." That insight prompted a deeper inquiry: what, exactly, was born within us? Is it culture as expression, or something more enduring, such as values, alignment, and a way of being rooted in mind, body, and soul?

Through more than 25 years of developing leaders across corporate, consulting, and civic spaces, including work with Fortune 100 organizations and global firms, Queen Ese observed a consistent gap. High-capacity leaders were operating without identity clarity or cultural grounding, resulting in misalignment in both leadership and collective progress.

At the same time, she recognized that for African descended communities, the lasting psychological impact of the African Holocaust remains largely unaddressed, making restoration a necessary precondition for sustainable advancement. African Roots Worldwide was created to address this intersection, establishing a platform focused on identity restoration, cultural alignment, and safeguarding African heritage not only as legacy, but as the origin of humanity itself.

Leaders Made emerged alongside it to develop what she defines as soul-centered leadership™, a framework grounded in values as infrastructure and the integration of mind, body, and spirit. Together, this work is driven by a mission to prepare leaders who are not only effective, but also rooted, capable of leading with clarity, protecting cultural truth, and advancing humanity with integrity in a rapidly evolving world.

THE TURNING POINT

In Her Own Words

A defining turning point came when I realized that many of the leaders I had spent years developing, individuals who were highly capable, accomplished, and operating at the highest levels, were still navigating a quiet but critical gap: a lack of identity, clarity, and cultural grounding. This was not a matter of competence, but of alignment. At the same time, was confronting that question within myself, what it truly means to be Black and globally positioned, yet not fully anchored in a shared understanding of African identity. What initially felt personal ultimately revealed itself to be systemic. I began to see how leadership was often shaped within systems such as educational, institutional, and global frameworks that were not designed with African heritage or cultural context in mind. As a result, many leaders were unconsciously aligning themselves by nationality, profession, or external achievement rather than from a grounded understanding of origin, values, and collective responsibility. Layered onto this was the enduring impact of historical trauma and cultural fragmentation, factors that continue to shape how individuals see themselves and how they lead.

That moment of clarity shifted my work entirely. Leadership could no longer be defined by performance alone. It required restoration. It required identity. It required a deeper integration of mind, body, and soul or spirit. From that point forward, my focus became building what did not yet exist, structures and frameworks that address both the internal and external dimensions of leadership.

That shift led directly to the creation of African Roots Worldwide and Leaders Made, as well as the development of a values-based, soul-centered leadership™ approach designed for long-term collective impact.

THE IMPACT ON SISTAHS

I hope women walk away with a deeper sense of clarity about who they are and the authority to define themselves beyond externally imposed narratives. I want them to recognize identity as something to be anchored in through values, African heritage, cultural grounding, and a connection to origin. One of my greatest inspirations is Toni Morrison, who, in the midst of the feminist movement, chose to define herself as a Womanist, an ancient African principle that grounds the Black woman's experience in her African cultural identity and historical truth.

That level of self-definition is powerful, and it reminds us that as we move toward global integration, we must remain anchored in the wisdom and cultural principles that have sustained us. I hope women are inspired to lead from a soul-centered place by integrating mind, body, and spirit, while remaining mindful not to lose that soul in the pursuit of modernization, convenience, or external validation.

There is a profound role women have always played as the backbone of thriving communities as wives, mothers, sisters, and aunties, holding the fabric of family and collective life together. That role is not limiting; it is foundational. It is where we learn how to repair, how to create space for belonging, and how to lead with what has long been known as "mother wit," the ability to bring wisdom, love, humor, and steadiness into even the most complex situations.

For women who feel disconnected or lack role models or community support, I want them to know there is a path to begin again by returning to values, seeking alignment in principles, and intentionally building or finding spaces that reflect those commitments. This work begins within our own lives, our families, and our communities.

I want women to feel empowered to reclaim both their identity and their influence, not from a place of individualism, but from a deep commitment to the collective. I want them to move from "me" to "we," and to recognize that the restoration of our communities is both our responsibility and something worth fighting for.

CONNECT

Follow and learn more at www.africanroots.org and www.leadersmade.com